


The Same Mistake, Again

by zaphodsgirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Be Careful What You Wish For, Dean Winchester Has Realizations, Dean Winchester is Bad at Feelings, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2018, F/M, Fairy Godmothers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not So Much Gay Panic as Gay Pondering, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-02 05:32:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16299041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaphodsgirl/pseuds/zaphodsgirl
Summary: One night, after watching Dean pick up yet another girl while they're out at a bar, Cas heads to the local diner. Over the years his feelings of attraction have only deepened into something more, and he wishes desperately to go back to the time before he was in love with his best friend. His wish is granted in an unexpected way: he wakes up in the hospital the next morning with broken limbs - an arm and a leg- and a fractured memory with the last four years missing.





	1. Saw the world turning in my sheets

**Author's Note:**

> This work would never have been completed without the constant support of the Unicorn Paddock and the Salt Cellar, but especially these three people: [superhoney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superhoney), [whichstiel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel), and [sconesandtextingandmurder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sconesandtextingandmurder).  
> How they managed to deal with my ceaseless whining because I kept writing myself up against a wall, I will never know. Superhoney gave solid and patient advice as both an alpha and a beta all through the process, and whichstiel and sconesandtextingandmurder were invaluable when I had reached the point when I just couldn't look at this critically anymore. My life is teeming with good fortune because they, and everyone else in the writer chats, are in it. 
> 
> Immense thanks go to my artist, [subtextiel](https://twitter.com/subtextiel), who I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE was partnered with me for this. It's like the universe is finally paying me back for high school. He also gave me some very valuable advice on the fic, in addition to the stunning artwork, which you can find [here](https://t.co/LV65pgdRAX) as well as in the fic itself! 
> 
> It takes a fucking village sometimes, I swear to Chuck.
> 
> Lastly, to the superior comedic duo that is muse and jojo, the challenge mods to end all other challenge mods, and without whom I would have never been encouraged (harassed) to start writing again and oh my god has it been two years already yes it has. Even when I struggle as much as I did with this fic I am grateful to have writing back in my life, as well as the community that goes with it. 
> 
> The title of this work is taken from "The Same Mistake" by James Blunt, as well as chapter headings.
> 
> Here's a tip for those of you who actually read this instead of skipping to the end: the answer is 42. You're welcome. The poor skippers will never know. *fingers guns*

**"All we do is think about the feelings that we hide"**  


– _Drive_ , Halsey 

"You almost ready to get out of here?" 

Cas Novak looks up from the spreadsheet he's been poring over for the last few hours, squinting at the figure leaning into his cubicle. Dean Winchester -- coworker, best friend, and roommate for the last five years -- is grinning at him, shirt sleeves cuffed up to his elbows, a leather jacket dangling off two fingers and hooked over his shoulder. Cas swallows at the sight of those forearms, then shuffles some papers as a distraction.

"I don't know, Dean. I thought I'd just go home and relax."

"Cas, you spend way too much time working. I swear if I weren’t here to fetch you every day you’d probably just sleep here,” Dean admonishes, and Cas can’t even argue. Dean drives him to and from work, reminds him to pick up his dry cleaning, even does most of the cooking. Cas wonders if he’s truly inept at day to day life or if Dean just takes care of him out of habit. “Besides, I've got to tell you about the shit Adler pulled during the presentation today, there are so many repercussions I can't even get my head around them."

"You could always tell me at home."

"Dude, you know how I feel about bringing work shit back to the apartment." 

Cas sighs, because he knows all too well. When they were in college together it wasn’t much of an issue, since they didn’t have many of the same classes. A campus job fair led them to apply at Sandover, and they were thrilled when they were both offered positions in their chosen fields to start right after graduation. Cas went to the sixth floor, content to spend his days in a small cubicle with the rigid predictability of numbers. Dean, with his natural charm and charisma, went easily to the marketing department up on the tenth. 

Since they didn’t interact much during the day they would naturally trade stories every evening, until Dean complained that they never talked about anything except for work at home, and instituted a new rule. Dean had many such rules, and Cas had memorized them all over the years: driver picks the music and shotgun shuts his cakehole, don't take a joint from a guy named Don, no dogs allowed in the car, Swayze always gets a pass. It wasn’t a stretch for him to add “no work pollution of the domicile” to the already long list. Cas learned long ago that it was easier to abide by the rules than to question them. He found them more endearing than annoying, but he couldn’t tell Dean that.

He looks at his watch and sees that it's already well after six, then runs his hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp to try to revitalize himself. He knows he's going to give in. He always does for Dean, even though he regrets it more often than not these days. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy Dean’s company anymore, rather that he’s more and more conscious of enjoying it more than he should in a way that isn’t reciprocated.

"Okay, but you're buying."

"Yes," Dean says, grinning as he fist pumps the air, and Cas can't help but shake his head fondly, shutting down his computer. Dean moves ahead of him down the corridor, and as they wait for an elevator he swings his jacket around and slides his arms into it in one smooth movement. Cas finds his eyes drawn to the muscles in Dean's shoulders as he moves, swallowing hard again before he can tear his gaze away, silently chanting his inner mantra: _Dean is your friend and sees you as a brother_. Dean, oblivious as ever to Cas's inappropriate behavior, impatiently jabs at the button a second time before putting his hands in his pockets and glaring at the doors.

As they wait Cas puts on his tan trenchcoat, and Dean glances over his shoulder at the movement. 

“It’s starting to get too cold for that coat, Cas. You should switch to that navy peacoat I got you for Christmas, otherwise you’ll be laid up with a bad cold again this year.”

“Yes, mother,” Cas says sarcastically, but there’s no heat in his voice. Miserable as he’d been that week, he’d perversely enjoyed the way Dean fussed over him, making crock pots full of varied soups for him to eat and checking his temperature. He’d cluck his tongue at the reading and cover Cas with another blanket, tucking it around him like a mother hen. _Or a concerned boyfriend,_ his traitorous imagination supplied. He starts to smile and then catches himself, schooling his features into something more somber before Dean glances his way again.

It really doesn't take long for the elevator to get to the sixth floor despite Dean's agitation, and there's no one else in the car. It's a Friday night, and most people have left the building by now. No doubt Dean's team stayed late to dissect whatever happened at their presentation, and Cas lost track of time as he always does. 

_It's because you have nothing to go home to,_ his mind whispers again. He wishes it weren't so, but the voice does kind of have a point. There really is nothing waiting for him at home except someone who is either oblivious to Cas's attraction, or too worried about ruining their friendship to point it out. Sometimes he's not sure which scenario is worse, but the end result of either is the same: affection unrequited and unresolved.

They don't chat on the way to their usual bar, but the silence between them is as comfortable as always. It's as busy as expected for a Friday night, but before they've finished their first drink one of the booths along the back wall opens up and they slide into it quickly. 

"Hey boys, good to see you again," says the waitress who comes over to serve them. "Usual?"

"Of course," Dean says, giving her a charming smile. "You know us, Tessa. Creatures of habit."

"I can always count on you boys," she says, not even bothering to write anything down. "I'll bring you another round after I put in your orders." She winks at Dean as she leaves, and Cas tries not to notice how he watches her walk away. 

"So," he says, drawing Dean's attention back to him. "Presentation?"

They fall easily into conversation, and Dean barely even acknowledges Tessa by the time she comes back with drinks and food. It's always this way with them, and it doesn't take long for the crowded bar to fade into the background for Cas. Dean is animated as he talks, and Cas is laughing around his burger as he hangs on every word. Tessa brings them another round of drinks when they've finished eating, and Cas loses track after that. The stress of the week slips away as easily as the hours, and he's about to suggest they head home for the night when the inevitable happens.

Dean is in the middle of telling an amusing story about the new intern's inability to use the copier when his gaze is drawn to the bar, and he trails off mid-sentence. Cas feels the tension return to his body, and he sits up straight as he finishes his latest beer. This turns out to be a mistake.

"Hey, I'll get the next round," Dean says, sliding out of the booth without a backward glance. 

"We have a _waitress_ ," Cas mutters under his breath, putting the empty glass down hard enough to clack against the table. He doesn't want to look, but there's a part of him that can’t resist. A part that wants to feel that stab to the heart, hoping that maybe it will hurt enough to break him free of the spell he's under. He turns to glance over his shoulder towards the U-shaped bar. 

Dean is leaning with one elbow on the bar, his back to Castiel, facing a woman with long dark hair. He leans in close to whisper to her and she laughs prettily, playfully pushing against his shoulder. 

Cas turns away. Sure enough, it does hurt -- but not enough to make him stop wishing for something he'll never have. He wonders what it would finally take to sever the strings of affection that bind his heart to Dean, because as time goes on it feels more like a web he wandered into because he couldn’t see how thoroughly it would trap him. There are probably thousands of precedents for the position Cas finds himself in, but it's difficult not to feel like he's alone in the world. 

Dean is handsome and charming, and it's rare that he strikes out with a lady. Cas knows the signs well, and he could tell in that single glance that Dean isn't sleeping alone tonight. 

_You need to get over this_ , he thinks to himself, not for the first time. It's been years since he realized he had feelings for Dean, and he wishes he could put a stop to them, but he just doesn't know how. At first he'd tried to ignore his attraction, thinking it would pass once they got to know each other better. When the attraction deepened to something more, he'd made an embarrassing drunken confession that Dean had gently rebuffed and never brought up again. Either he didn’t know the sincerity of Cas’s confession, or he wanted to let him down gently. Sometimes Cas daydreams that it was the former option, that he just didn’t understand, that perhaps the possibility still exists that someday Dean will notice him. The high percentage of opposite sex encounters Dean has -- _one hundred percent is a pretty high percentage,_ his brain cheerfully whispers -- makes it a statistical impossibility, but Dean has never explicitly called himself straight. Cas clings to that slim chance like a character in some dumb movie Dean made him watch once. Cas tried dating other people, but his last boyfriend had broken up with him, gently telling him that he didn't think he could compete when Cas was obviously in love with someone else. 

Throwing himself into schoolwork, and then later his job, has done nothing to suppress the fervent longing inside him. Lately he's been wondering if he should move -- not just out of their shared apartment, but out of the city entirely. He could transfer to another place, give himself a clean break. It would be the most difficult thing he’s ever done, but the most necessary. 

Most of the time being with Dean is all he's ever wanted in a relationship. They do almost everything together: watch TV while they eat takeout, make plans for the holidays, get together with mutual friends, even cook -- or rather, Dean cooks while bossing Cas around the kitchen. They’ve basically built a life together except for one small, but important detail. A detail with dark hair that Dean is currently chatting up at the bar. 

Dean never dates seriously, never seeks women out for anything more than short-term sexual companionship, and Cas told himself long ago that it was probably a good thing Dean wasn’t interested in him, because he could never settle for being just another one night stand. Cas knows he wants commitment, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Nothing, except that the object of his affection is his diametric opposite. 

Cas signals Tessa for the tab, glancing over his shoulder to check on Dean's progress. The girl has her hand on his chest now, leaning into his space, and Cas sighs. 

He remembers when he'd first come out to his friend Balthazar in high school, nervous and stuttering over his words until Balth had laughed and embraced him. 

"There's a lot of advice I can give you, but there's one thing, above all else, that you must never, ever do."

"What's that?" Cas had asked, relief washing through him over his friend's easy acceptance. Balth had put his hands on Cas's shoulders and looked him deep in the eyes, making sure he had his undivided attention before he spoke again.

"Never, ever, fall for a straight boy."

Castiel had laughed back then, thinking it a stupid, improbable thing to guard against. It wasn't until three years later, nineteen and finished with his freshman year in college, that he realized all too late exactly what Balthazar had meant. 

Another four years have passed since _that_ self-realization, and he's worked hard to keep his feelings to himself, ever since the night he blurted it out and Dean gently rejected him. Cas convinced himself that friendship would be enough, and most of the time he even believes that it's true.

Then, just when he thinks he's managing it, some lovely girl will flash a smile at Dean from across the bar. Each time Cas feels his heart crumple inside his chest all over again. Each time leaves him wishing he could do something to get rid of these feelings.

Usually Cas will wait until Dean gives him a thumbs up from across the room, often as he walks out with the girl under his arm, but Cas just can't stomach it tonight. He slides out of the booth, leaving enough money on the table to cover their check with a generous tip. 

"So much for you buying," he says under his breath, sliding out of the booth and shrugging into his trenchcoat. He studies Dean's latest conquest as he makes his way across the bar, and he can't deny that she's beautiful. Dark hair, dark eyes, bright smile, even prettier up close than she is at a distance. Just the sort of girl Dean has brought home dozens of times before. He almost feels sorry for her, because most of them don't get a second chance with Dean Winchester, and those who do still don't last longer than an extended weekend. Cas reminds himself again that he's lucky, because he gets more out of Dean as a friend than any of these women ever do. It really is like being in a relationship. That's one-sided. And sexless. 

_The lack of sex is also one-sided_ , the voice in his head whispers again, and he sighs. He realizes suddenly that he's been staring, and the girl catches his eye over Dean’s shoulder. She gives him a quizzical look, and it makes him wonder how much of his anguish is visible on his face. He quickly makes his way out the door and into the chilly October night.

He doesn’t want to head home because the walls of their apartment are not that thick, which he learned the hard way. Instead he makes his way towards another familiar place, just a few blocks from the bar and on his way home.

The walk in the brisk night air helps him get himself together before he pushes open the door to _The Wayward Diner_ , the cow bells hanging from it announcing his arrival. He sees a head pop into the pass-through into the kitchen, and Donna waves from her place behind the grill. 

"Hiya Cas! Sit wherever you want, I’ll send someone out in a second!" She says it enthusiastically, as though it's early on a bright and sunny day instead of close to midnight in October. Cas nods as he passes by, glancing around at the other people in the place as he takes a seat in his usual booth. Usually, whatever waitress is on will appear with coffee right away like a fairy godmother, and tonight is no exception. A young woman named Patience materializes at his elbow, flipping his cup upright in the saucer and pouring for him with a sad, knowing smile. 

"I had a feeling I’d see you tonight. Do you wanna talk about it?" she asks as he reaches for the sugar. It's usually dead in here until the bars close, and the staff all know him and Dean well, since they spend a lot of time here. They also all know what it means when Cas comes in late at night, alone, and it’s a shared secret they’re all too polite to mention when he has company. They never judge him for his predicament, and they never offer any solutions, either. It's as though they all know there aren't any, and he appreciates having people who just listen and nod in sympathy. 

"I think I just want to sit here and lick my gaping wound, actually," he replies, tearing four sugar packets at once and dumping the contents into the steaming black liquid before him. "Is there a muffin I could put on it?"

"How do you feel about a pumpkin bandage?"

"I think pumpkin will staunch the blood flow nicely."

"You got it." He idly stirs his coffee as she walks to the pastry case, scooping his spoon along the bottom of the cup to check for sugar crystals, making sure they all dissolve. Patience brings the warm muffin over to him on a small plate, leaving a handful of butter packets beside it. He breaks the steaming muffin in two, filling it with a few pats of butter before he presses it back together to let them soften with the heat. While he waits he stirs creamer into his coffee until it's nice and light, then sips from the cup with both hands as he ponders how he got here. 

*******

A month before he finally left home for his first year of college, Cas got the letter with his dorm assignment and roommate information. He'd opened it eagerly to see where he'd be living, having already memorized the campus map, and was surprised to see that he had more than one roommate. 

**Allen Hall, Room 414**

Uriel Anderson

Dean Winchester

*Castiel Novak

He'd scanned the bottom of the letter until he found the explanation for the asterisk: _Due to the demand for on-campus housing, students with the * classification will be moved to a different room as space becomes available. Please plan accordingly, as your initial assignment will only have ethernet hookup for two._

"Great," he muttered under his breath. It usually took him a while to get comfortable around people. With his luck, as soon as he did he'd have to move and start all over again with someone else. 

_Either way, it will be good to get out of here, go somewhere I can be myself,_ he thought. He trudged upstairs and looked around his bedroom, walls bare of anything except the cross his mother had hung over his bed when he was four. He'd opened his laptop and gone to his Facebook account -- which his mother had only allowed after he'd spent two hours explaining that it was necessary to communicate with both teachers and classmates about assignments, as well as get school announcements -- to look for his new roommates. He'd sent friend requests to both of them, crossing his fingers and hoping they would get along. 

Uriel accepted his request almost immediately, and Cas sent him an enthusiastic message of introduction. Uriel never replied. Cas had looked at his profile, and it seemed like Uriel espoused all the same rhetoric his own mother was prone to. It didn't bode well, but maybe his other roommate would be better.

Dean never even accepted the friend request. 

Cas left for school alone with a sinking feeling, and the sense of dread hadn't dissipated by the time he arrived on campus. He'd entered the room to find one person already there, hanging his clothes in the closet. He had a shaved head and a stormy expression, and his body language was no better. Cas knew from his profile picture that this was Uriel, and apparently he had been sufficiently unimpressed by Castiel given the disdainful look on his face. 

"You get the bottom bunk, Temp. I claimed the top, and Winchester took the single bed already," he'd said, gesturing to the small twin pushed into the corner perpendicular to the bunks. "Try not to move around too much at night, I'm a light sleeper." He'd given Cas a sharp look, then turned back to the closet. "You look like the kind to prefer the bottom anyway." 

Cas found himself unable to say anything, so instead he dragged his small trunk into the room before pulling sheets out of it to make up his bed as he struggled not to cry.

He hadn't met Dean until hours later, and he'd done nothing more than shake hands politely and go right to bed. Cas had spent the entire night staring up at the bottom of Uriel's bunk, listening to him snore and feeling miserable.

Uriel never used his name. He only called him 'Temp' whenever he deigned to speak to him, which wasn't often, and always with contempt.

Dean was rarely around, practically never in the room except to sleep. He was always polite, but his wholesome good looks and affable personality made Cas distrustful of him, wary of the good old boy stereotype that Dean seemed to embody. Unfortunately, Cas also found him extremely attractive -- all tanned skin, with dark blond hair and green eyes that glinted whenever he smiled. This made Cas even more self-conscious around him, turning his movements awkward and strange as he tried to keep his distance. He was glad Uriel had claimed the top bunk and couldn't see the way Cas admired Dean's shirtless form every morning in the semi-darkness as he slept. He wasn't sure what Dean would do if he found out about his orientation, but he had a good idea of what Uriel's reaction would be if Cas did anything to confirm what he already seemed to know. 

On a Thursday six weeks into the semester Cas finally got a new room assignment in his campus mailbox, and he'd nearly cried with relief. He'd gone straight to the room, thinking he could pack quickly and leave before anyone got back from class. 

Surprisingly, Dean was actually in the room for a change. He looked up and gave Cas a nod of acknowledgement and a small smile, then turned back to the textbook he was reading at his desk. Cas wasn’t surprised; he was usually reticent around his roommates, eschewing small talk of any kind. Cas hesitated for a moment, then pulled his bag out from under the bed and started packing his clothes without a word. He heard the scrape of a chair behind him. 

"You going home early for the weekend?" Dean's voice was polite and curious, and Cas found it hard to be rude. 

"Not exactly." He was glad he had his back to Dean, because he thought the shaking in his hands as he packed his socks belied the casual tone he was trying to affect. "Someone must have dropped out, because space finally opened up in another dorm for me." 

"What?" The shock in Dean's voice sounded genuine. 

Cas turned to stare at him for a moment, but then he'd gone back to shoving things into his backpack. "I was only assigned here temporarily, you know that." 

"I don't want you to go, man. I'd much rather have you as my roommate than Uriel, that guy's an ass." 

Dean had always been nice to him, but Cas had a feeling his goodwill wouldn't last when the truth came out. "I don't think that would be wise," he hedged, wondering if his new roommate would be the tolerant type. Or at least less attractive. Did it make him a bad person to wish for an ugly roommate?

"What? Why not? I think we'd get along great if you got to know me better. Or at all, even."

"I think my sexual orientation would make you uncomfortable," he'd blurted, preparing for the worst. There was no point keeping it a secret any longer, since he was on his way out, and maybe Dean would just back off and leave him be.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Dean had sounded so incredulous that Cas paused, turning to him with a pair of sweatpants in his hands. "I don't care about that, dude, whatever it is. You'd know that already if I were around more, I guess." He ran his hands through hair, then leaned onto his knees to look Cas in the eye. "Listen. Let's go over to the housing office and talk to them about this. I really don't want to spend the rest of the year with Captain Righteous, and even if you don't want to braid each other's hair every night I much prefer your company."

"You never even accepted my friend request." It was a stupid thing to say, but it was always in the back of his mind whenever Dean was nice to him.

"On Facebook? You sent me one? Aw, man, I'm sorry. I'm terrible with social media stuff, I don't think I've even opened it for months!"

Cas had blinked stupidly at him, at a loss for what to say. Dean squirmed uncomfortably.

"Unless...unless you really don't want to room with me?" He asked this last part rather timidly, as though it hadn't actually occurred to him, and just like that everything changed for Cas. For the first time he saw past Dean's outward veneer and glimpsed the one beneath it: shy, unsure, and maybe just as vulnerable as he was. 

"I think I would like to, actually." 

Dean smiled fully then, and Cas felt his heart skip a beat before he shook himself. He couldn't be perving on his roommate if he didn't want to go back to having an awkward living situation. _It might help if you actually got to know him better_. _Familiarity breeds contempt and all that._ He didn't know, then, that familiarity can also shape a thing to you in a way that makes anything else seem like a poor substitute. That familiarity is what makes a pillow mold to your head just right, or a favorite pair of jeans so comfortable, or a person feel like there's no one else for you but them.

They'd gone straight to the housing office, who were all too happy to help. "We'd much rather keep people together who actually _want_ to be," said the woman at the desk, typing some things into the computer. "Your other roommate should get the notification tomorrow that he's moving instead, so if you want to avoid conflict about it, maybe just go to the library for the night." She'd winked and handed them a copy of the paperwork that listed them officially as roommates.

It was the first time since coming to school that Cas felt like he could relax, and on the walk back to their room Dean had shoved him playfully with his shoulder. "I actually don't have any classes tomorrow after two, and I'm not working my job anymore," he'd said. He gave Cas a sidelong look. "How about, instead of hiding in the library avoiding Uriel, you meet me in the dining hall when you're done with class? I'll tell you all about me, and we can get to know each other properly. Plus, we'll have access to food while we wait for Dickless to move out." Cas couldn't help himself any longer, throwing his head back to laugh in a way he hadn't since leaving home. 

“That sounds great, Dean, thank you.” 

“We could always go to the homecoming game after that, waste a couple more hours to make absolutely sure he’s gone.”

“But I don’t know anything about football.”

Dean had slung an arm casually around his shoulders, and Cas had felt a swooping sensation in his gut that almost made him trip. “Come on, I’ll buy you a shirt and everything, make it an immersive experience.” Cas looked up at that smile, devilish and sincere all at once, and knew his life would never be the same.

“Okay.”

Dean had become the center of his small universe since then, especially since Cas became estranged from his parents. They've lived together all this time, three years in the dorms and then an apartment senior year where they still reside, over a year after graduation.

The apartment where, at this very moment, Dean is nakedly entertaining the willing female he met at the bar, while Cas sits alone up the street wishing for something he'll never have. Dean has never confronted him about his inappropriate feelings, or treated him any differently, but Cas knows exactly what the parade of women through their apartment means: he's a fool. 

Every relationship Cas has had over the years was an attempt to put his feelings for Dean behind him, but most of them didn’t last. His last had been the longest, with Inias, who had broken things off before they’d even gotten to a year. Cas had really wanted things to work between them, because Inias was kind and smart and funny, and he genuinely seemed to care about Cas. He’d certainly cared enough to tell him the truth about why he was ending things as gently as he could. 

_It's not wise for me to fall in love with you, Castiel, when clearly you're already in love with someone else_. 

Cas had been hurt and shocked when Inias had said that -- not because it wasn't true, but because he thought he was hiding it better. _Dean is your friend and sees you as a brother_ , he repeats in his head constantly, but his heart just doesn't listen, unable to get past what he _wants_ to focus on something he can _have_ instead. 

And so he's alone in a diner with nothing to satisfy his own desires except a perfectly good pumpkin muffin, which he's just been picking apart with his fingers for the last hour, wondering if his heartbreak is palpable to everyone else in the place. He checks the time on his phone and sees that it's close to two in the morning, and puts it in his back pocket with a sigh. Even Dean Winchester will have achieved completion and fallen asleep by now, so it's probably safe to return home for the night.

Patience seems to have anticipated his departure, because she magically appears with the check, placing it on the table with a flourish.

"Any other wishes?"

“I wish I could go back to the days before I fell hopelessly in love with my roommate,” he blurts without thinking.

"I'll see what I can do," she says, patting him on the shoulder, which tingles a bit as she heads back to the counter.

Cas abandons the remains of his muffin, sliding out of the booth and tugging on his coat. He fumbles a few bills out of his wallet, leaving a generous tip as always, then shoves it into his coat pocket as he heads out the door with a wave. 

*******

Patience smiles to herself as she collects his money from the table, taking it to the register behind the counter and ringing up the check. She buses it next and takes the dirty dishes into the kitchen as Donna gives her a sideways glance.

"That boy had magic on him when he left. What did you do?"

"Nothing!" she says defensively, opening the dishwasher and turning her back to Donna as she loads it. She stands when she's finished, turning around and kicking it closed with her heel. "Well, nothing _big_." 

"I knew it," Donna says, drawing it out in exasperation. "I know you mean well, honey, truly, but you can't cast spells on unsuspecting customers." 

"It wasn't a spell! I just...increased the probability that he'd get things he wanted."

"You didn't!" Donna gapes, eyes almost too wide for her face as she looks at Patience with undisguised horror. "You're going to be in so much trouble when Missouri finds out." 

"How can it be bad to make someone lucky?" Patience says, rolling her eyes as she makes a fresh pot of coffee. 

"How can someone from an entire line of fairy godmothers not understand the meaning of the phrase _be careful what you wish for_?" Donna shakes her head and turns back to the grill. "You're young and untrained, and magic is a fickle beast. Whatever 'probability' you increased," and she actually makes air quotes with the spatula in one hand, "is not going to go as planned." 

"There’s no plan, silly, because what he wished for isn't technically possible," Patience says dismissively. “So I just gave him good luck. Like a caffeine shot to the soul.”

"That's going to make it _worse_." 

"Everything is fine. I had a vision about him earlier today, but nothing bad was happening to him.”

“Your visions are subjective, and that happened before you decided to change the course of his life!”

“You worry too much," Patience calls over her shoulder as she makes her way down the length of the counter to take an order.

"Because apparently I have to worry for both of us," Donna mutters under her breath, focusing on the french toast. 


	2. Look at the stars beneath my feet

**“You’re the reason that I lost my way”**

\-- _Just a Memory,_ Stealing Eden 

It's even colder at this time of night, and Cas hunches into himself as he walks the three blocks home from the diner, a route he's traversed often and at all hours. The familiarity of it causes his mind to wander, thinking about the kind of life he would have if the object of his affection weren't hopelessly out of his reach. 

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Lost in thought, he doesn't notice the dark figure leave the alley he passes two buildings from his apartment, trailing behind him until he comes abreast of another alley. Suddenly he's being shoved from behind, out of range of the streetlights and into the darkness. His dress shoes slip on the concrete, and he nearly falls as he turns to face whoever pushed him.

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"Give me your wallet and your watch," says a high, reedy voice tinged with desperation. Cas holds his hands up reflexively, unable to make out the features of the person before him, but seeing clearly the barrel of the gun pointed in his face.

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"Okay, okay," he says. "I'm just going to reach into my pocket." He brings his hands down slowly, peeling back one side of his trench coat carefully. "My wallet is just in here, I'm going to pull it out and put it on the ground." He squats and places the leather billfold on the concrete, then removes his watch and places it on top before he stands back up, hands still in the air.

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"Your phone, too!" the person yells, gun wavering in his grip, and Cas nods rapidly in response. 

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"Yes, yes, my phone, too," he says, patting at his coat before he remembers that it's in the back pocket of his jeans. He reaches back to grab it.

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"Stop!" the figure says, coming forward a step or two. "What are you doing?" Cas puts his hands back in the air carefully, trying to speak with a calm he does not feel.

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"My phone is in my back pocket."

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"Turn around."

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Cas revolves slowly, hyper aware of the gun pointed at him, until he has his back to it. The mugger moves his trench coat aside, fumbling at his slacks until he pulls the phone out of his right pocket. 

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"Okay," Cas says, "you got what you wanted. I don't want any..."

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Something hard strikes the side of his head, and he falls to his knees in the dark alley as his assailant runs past him to the opposite end. He wavers for a moment before he collapses onto his side, head throbbing, and he cradles it in his hands as he pants in pain. As he pulls his hands away he realizes one of them is covered in blood as his vision swims before him.

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_I need help_ , he thinks stupidly, struggling to get to his feet. He manages to get back on his knees first, then places a bloody hand against the brick for balance as he hauls himself upright. He swoons when he stands fully but luckily the wall is there to catch him, and he keeps one hand on it as he stumbles towards the street. His head is spinning, he can't think clearly, and he's no longer sure where he is as he reaches the sidewalk. He lurches off the wall to cling to the streetlamp on the curbside, leaning against it for support as he basks in the circle of safety it illuminates. He looks around, trying to get his bearings, but he can't see straight and there's something clouding the vision of one of his eyes. He sees a light in the distance, and he blinks rapidly to try to clear his sight as he stumbles away from the curb towards it.

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There's the sound of a horn and screeching tires, and then Castiel's mind goes completely blank.

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*******

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Dean's not sure what time it is when he finally wakes, his vision too blurry to make out the numbers on the alarm clock. He sits up and rubs his eyes, squinting at the display until he can make out 10:23 a.m., then glances at the sleeping girl beside him. Laura? Lisa? Linda? Christ, he can't exactly remember, and it makes him feel like a dick. 

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_How long am I going to keep doing this,_ he wonders. Sam probably has a mental dissertation about Dean and his commitment issues, but there's absolutely no way he's ever broaching the subject with his baby brother. So here he is again, waking up next to a total stranger and wondering what he’s doing with his life. 

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_Things would be different if you’d just take a chance on what you want_ , but he quashes that thought with a practiced effort, giving a last guilty glance to the woman asleep next to him. 

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He throws back the sheets and puts his feet on the floor, frowning to himself when he finds it cold. That's odd. Cas always turns the heat up whenever he rolls out of bed, squinting at the dial until he gets the tiny arrow to where he wants it. By now the apartment should be toasty warm, but now that he’s not under the blankets next to a warm body Dean realizes there's a bite to the air in the room as well. He grabs a sweatshirt off the end of the bed as he pads out into the main room in his boxers, pulling it over his head as he shuts the door behind him. 

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There's something else wrong, but he can't quite put his finger on it. He turns up the thermostat before heading into the kitchen, and it's not until he grabs a mug out of the cupboard that he realizes there's no coffee brewing. It's the second thing Cas does every morning, because despite his tendency to rise early he needs coffee to function properly. He’s usually well into his second cup, hunched over at their small table, by the time Dean comes out to start breakfast. Dean stares at the mug in his hand and frowns before putting it on the counter and setting up the machine to brew.

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He looks over to Cas's room, and though the door looks closed he can see it's not pulled shut as he gets nearer. He knocks lightly with a knuckle.

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"Cas?" He puts his ear up to the door, trying to hear breathing on the other side, then knocks a little louder. "Cas, are you okay?" There's no answer, so he pushes the door open to find an undisturbed bed. He wracks his brain, trying to remember if Cas had an early appointment that he's forgotten about, but when he checks the calendar on the fridge there's nothing written there. 

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"Do I smell coffee?" the brunette with the dark eyes says as she wanders out of his room, fully dressed and pulling her hair into a ponytail. _Lisa_. That's definitely her name. He thinks.

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"Yeah, uh, help yourself," he says as he continues staring at the calendar, as if there's something written in invisible ink that has yet to reveal itself. "There's cups in the cupboard above and sugar right next to it. Half in half in the fridge if you want any." 

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"You okay?" she asks, giving him a quizzical look as she pours herself a mug full of coffee, eschewing any accoutrements and drinking it black. "You look lost."

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"Yeah, well, it looks like my roommate never came home and I'm a little worried."

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"Well, maybe you're not the only one who got lucky at the bar last night," she replies with a smirk. Normally Dean would play along with a girl who teases him, but her comment rubs him the wrong way. 

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"He's not like that," he says, twisting the hem of his sweatshirt. "Cas doesn't do casual hookups." 

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"Wait, was he the guy sitting in the booth with you before you came over to talk to me?"

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"Yeah, I didn't see him leave, either, which is weird."

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"Oh, well, you had your back to him. I'm pretty sure I saw him walk out. Tan trenchcoat?"

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"Yeah, did he leave with somebody?" Dean asks as he turns towards her, hoping she can’t see on his face that it hurts to say.

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"No, but," she bites her lip before she continues, "how long have you guys been roommates?" 

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"Long enough that I know he wouldn't go home with someone he didn't know." Lisa nods as she sips from her coffee, as though Dean's confirmed something for her, and then gives him a pitying look.

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"He probably doesn’t do casual hook ups because he's already got his heart set on someone else."

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"What? Was he talking to someone?" Dean asks, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms. She gives him an assessing look over her coffee cup, then shakes her head.

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"You know, I'm kind of glad you're oblivious. I'd hate to think you were just cruel."

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"What on earth does that mean?"

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Lisa pours the rest of her coffee down the drain, then heads to the front door, putting on her coat and pulling her hair out the back of it in one fluid movement. 

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"It means that your roommate wants to share more with you than the cost of utilities," she says, grabbing her purse from the floor. "You should have a long talk with him about it whenever he gets home." She opens the door, turning back to give him a tight-lipped smile. "I had fun last night. I hope your roommate is okay, Dave." 

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"It's _Dean_ ," he says, and she shrugs before she heads out the door, shutting it behind her. He stands there in stunned silence for a moment, then shakes himself before going to look for his phone. It's in his pants from last night, crumpled on the floor of his room, completely dead now. He frowns as he plugs it into the charger, unsettled by the absence of Cas and the things Lisa said before she left. "Like she knows anything after seeing him across a room. In the _dark_.” He stabs at the home button on his phone, frustrated when nothing comes up but the battery icon with a tiny sliver of red. “He's a big boy," he mutters to himself under his breath as he picks up the rest of his clothes, tossing them into the hamper. He brushes his teeth as he waits for the shower to warm up, mind turning over with possibilities.

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He knows Cas would never go home with someone he just met, and it's unlikely he would have stayed out all night even if he'd run into someone else they know. Did he have to go into work this morning and overslept? Is it possible that he had an emergency? Maybe he got a call early this morning and had to rush out of the apartment, only Dean can't think of anyone who would call Cas in the middle of the night. 

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He takes a perfunctory shower, not even using the time to relive his encounter with Lisa for a little morning delight, as he usually would. He barely towels off before wandering naked back into his bedroom, pressing the home button on his phone and frowning harder when he doesn't see any missed calls or texts. 

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_Hey buddy, where the hell are you?_ he sends before he dries off completely and gets dressed, cringing over his own verbiage, then takes his phone and charger out into the kitchen with him so he can plug it in there while he makes breakfast. He's really starting to worry by the the time he finishes cooking, and he stares at the device sitting idly on the counter the entire time he eats, just willing it to ring or buzz with a response. By the time he puts his empty plate in the sink, he's completely filled with dread.

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*******

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The first thing Cas becomes aware of is a beeping sound somewhere nearby, and the murmur of hushed voices that he doesn't recognize. The second is that his eyes feel as though they're glued shut, and when he tries to open his mouth to speak he finds that his lips are stuck together and his throat is dry. He manages to produce a croaking sound, and suddenly the tenor of the voices change.

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"Sir? Can you hear me?" says a female voice close to him, and he manages another croak. There's a whirring, and he realizes that he's being raised up to a sitting position just as someone peels his eyelids open and shines a light in them. "There you are! How are you feeling?" He blinks at her in response, and she just smiles. "Thirsty?" she asks, and he nods slowly.

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A nurse approaches with a cup and a straw, holding them close enough for him to sip from, and the cool sensation relieves the desert of his throat. 

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"Now," the first woman says, taking a seat next to him. "We haven't been properly introduced. Can you tell me your name?" 

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"Cas," he croaks out, his voice scratchy despite the relief from the water, and he wonders if they'd intubated him and how long he's been here. What the hell happened while he was out with Dean last night? "Castiel Novak." 

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"Good! That's really good," she says, writing on her clipboard. "You're in St. Mary's. I'm Dr. Barnes."

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"St. Mary's? The hospital?" The doctor nods. 

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"Do you recall what happened to you at all?" 

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He looks down at himself, considering. His right arm is in a cast from the elbow down, and he's shocked to find the same on his opposite leg below the knee. He squints in concentration, going through the events he can remember, but it's like reaching through a fog to catch a scrap of fabric blowing in the breeze. 

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"I can't," he gets out, squinting his eyes and letting his head rest against the pillow. "It's like I know there's something there, but..." he feels unsure, the train of thought to what happened muddy and confused. "I was out drinking with my roommate and...I don't remember anything after that."

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"Well, you didn't have any ID on you, and it looks like you took a pretty good blow to the head," Dr. Barnes supplies. "The driver that hit you said you were already bleeding from the head when you wandered out into the street." She pats him on the shoulder. "I'm going to guess that you may have been mugged, since you didn't have any valuables on you when you came in, including your wallet."

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"Driver? Hit me?" he says quizzically, more confused than ever. She pats him on the thigh and gives him a soft look.

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"You were hit by a car," she says carefully. "You wandered into the street right in front of a vehicle. Thankfully that individual called for help immediately, and you were brought here. You're pretty banged up, kiddo, but I'm a lot less worried now that you're awake and know your name. It's going to take some time, but I think you'll be just fine, physically." He nods against the pillow as he stares at the ceiling, unfocused. 

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"How long have I been here?" he finally asks.

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"You were brought in around three this morning, and it's noon now," she says softly. "Can you tell me who I can call for you? We have a lot to go over, but I can get someone on their way here to be with you first."

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He has to think about it, that foggy sensation making his head feel heavy before the information he needs comes to him, and he gives Dr. Barnes his parents' info. Reciting the numbers feels strange, as though he hasn't done it for some time. He tries to relax after she leaves the room, but his thoughts are in turmoil. 

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Dr. Barnes comes back into the room, and Cas studies her as he waits to hear what she has to say. She looks extremely uncomfortable, and he's about to ask her what's wrong when she hides her gaze in her clipboard and starts asking him questions.

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"Mr. Novak, can you tell me how old you are?"

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"Um," it takes him a second, which is a little embarrassing, "nineteen."

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"And your birthday?"

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He rattles off the date easily, but the doctor frowns harder.

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She looks at him, her face no longer betraying anything. "Can you tell me the current month and year?"

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"It's, uh..." his mind flails about in the fog, "April. April 2012." Dr. Barnes sits in a chair by his bed, scooting as close as she can get, then puts out a hand to rest on his unbandaged one. 

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"Mr. Novak. I have to discuss some things with you that are going to be upsetting, but I will do everything I can to help."

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"Help? What...what's..."

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"I spoke to your mother, Naomi," Dr. Barnes says, and for a moment she looks distinctly like she's bitten into a lemon. "She informed me that she hasn't seen you in over a year. Do you have any recollection of that?"

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"What? No, that's not, it can't be. I just spoke to her a few days ago, I'm sure of it. Why would she say that?" He can feel panic clawing at his chest, and he tries to breathe deeply. 

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"Castiel," Dr. Barnes says firmly, and he turns to try and focus on her face. “I have to tell you the hard part now.” Cas nods, fearful, his undamaged hand clenching into a fist. "First of all, it's October."

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"What?" He blinks a few times, searching his memories, but it's still just fog. The last thing he clearly remembers is the Spring Fling party that he and Dean were at. "I've lost several _months_ of my memory?" Dr. Barnes reaches out again, laying her hand on his fist. "But...but...why did my mother say she hadn't spoken to me in over a _year_?" Dr. Barnes looks uncomfortable, and Cas opens his fist and turns his hand to grasp at her fingers. " _Why_?" 

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"She didn't say," is the response, but Cas can hear the lie in her voice. “She just said that you had a falling out after your _college_ graduation in May. Of 2015.”

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"It's...2016?" Shock and dismay wash over him like a tidal wave, and he sinks back heavily against the mattress, turning his gaze to the ceiling. 

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"Mr. Novak. Castiel. I need to make a call, but when I come back we'll talk some more about what’s happened to you." He shuts his eyes against the sound of her voice, and nods in solemn resignation. 

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*******

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By early afternoon, Dean is beginning to panic. Cas's phone is going directly to voicemail, and he hasn't responded to any texts. 

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"Dean, he's a grown man," Sam says, his reasonable tone completely at odds with Dean's panic. "I'm sure he hasn't been kidnapped and sold into slavery."

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"Sam, he wouldn't just stay out all night without letting me know."

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"You don't know he was out all night. He might have gotten up early this morning, and have plans today that you're not privy to. You're his roommate, not his boyfriend."

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"What?" He's taken aback. "Why would you say that?"

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"Dean." He can hear the look of exasperation on Sam's face from hundreds of miles away. "That's exactly how you're acting. It's how you _always_ act about Cas."

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"I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

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Sam goes quiet on the other end of the phone, and Dean rubs his eyes in frustration before his brother continues much more quietly than before.

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"Are you seriously this obtuse?" he asks, but it sounds more like he's talking to himself. 

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"Sammy, I realize you have high aspirations, but I'm still a huge fan of frank speech. Could you just tell me plainly what the hell you're driving at so I can go back to worrying about Cas?"

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His little brother breathes heavily into the phone, and Dean rolls his eyes even though there's no one there to see him.

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"Okay, just bear with me. Has Cas ever had random hookups before?"

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"No, Sam, you know strangers make him uncomfortable. He's always known people for a while before they've dated. Hell, he even waits a few more weeks at _least_ before doing the deed. He does not do random."

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"And that's _all_ you do. Honestly, how are the two of you even friends?"

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"Focus, Sam."

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"I'm focused enough to think there's something obvious you're not seeing. Maybe you're the one who needs to focus."

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"I'm hanging up now."

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"Okay, okay. You're sure he hasn't been seeing anyone?"

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"He'd have to be a goddamn stealth ninja to be doing that without me knowing, man, and I can't think of any reason why he wouldn't tell me. We spend practically all our free time together. He hasn't dated anyone since Inias, and they broke up over a year ago."

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"Right. Just after you two moved off-campus into that apartment, wasn't it?"

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Dean takes a moment to consider. They moved into this place right before their senior year, and Cas had been dating Inias for months at that point -- not long enough for them to move in together as a couple, but seriously enough that Dean worried that he'd have to find a new roommate after graduation. 

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"Yeah, now that you mention it...they were broken up by Halloween, because Cas and I went to the Theta Chi party together that year." He'd dressed Cas up as Lando Calrissian to his Han Solo, and he'd looked fantastic in the cape. Dean had hoped it would give him the confidence to meet someone new, but Cas had spent most of the party standing against the wall, clutching his red plastic cup and sulking. Dean was occupied with a couple of girls from Phi Sig when Cas disappeared on him and went back to the dorm. He'd been curled up in bed when Dean got home in the morning, having done the walk of shame across campus still in his costume. 

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"Raphael tried to get together with him for a while after that, but Cas wasn't interested because that guy was a dick. Oh, and that guy who was _literally_ a dick, of the Roman variety, kept hitting on him all spring until I had to tell him to back off because he wasn't getting the hint."

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"So what I'm hearing is that this current situation is not the first time you've acted like his boyfriend."

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"Jesus Christ, Sam, if you're just gonna keep cracking jokes I have better things to do." He hangs up the phone, wishing he had a landline so he could actually slam the handset down onto the receiver in his disgust. Just pressing the red button with his thumb doesn't give the same sense of satisfaction. He's about to throw his phone onto the couch cushions and resume his frantic pacing when there’s a knock at the door.

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"Yeah?" he answers, opening the door to an unfamiliar face.

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An unfamiliar face in the uniform of a police officer. 

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"Hi, I’m Officer Mills. Is this the residence of Castiel Novak?" the woman in the hall says, looking up from a small notebook. She has short dark hair and stands several inches shorter than he does, but he finds her intimidating even so.

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"Yes, but he’s not here right...oh god. Did something happen? Is he okay?” He clutches the door frame with one hand and his stomach with the other. 

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“Hey now, calm down,” she says firmly but not unkindly. “He’s okay. Are you family?” 

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“No, he doesn’t have any family. I’m his emergency contact, though, so no matter what it is you can tell me. I’m his roommate.” He braces himself for the worst. 

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“You got a name, kid?”

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“Dean Winchester.”

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She looks at her notepad, seeming to verify this information, then nods. “Your friend had an accident and was admitted to St. Mary’s in the early morning. He's awake now and he's doing rather well at the moment, but he's very disoriented." 

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"Fuck," he says, leaning over and taking a deep breath. “I knew something happened, I just knew it.” He stands up and grabs his keys from the bowl next to the door, pulling it shut behind him as he enters the hall. "What room is he in? What happened?" He starts walking towards the elevator, giving Officer Mills no choice but to follow him. 

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“I’m heading there now to take his statement, so why don’t I just drive you?” She raises an eyebrow at the way he jabs repeatedly at the elevator call button. “You seem a little too distressed to drive right now.”

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He opens his mouth to argue, then thinks better of it and nods as the elevator doors open, following Officer Mills into the parking garage below their building and getting into the passenger side of her vehicle. 

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He's equal parts worry and relief, unsure of what state Cas will be in when he gets there but grateful that he knows where he is. He'll call Sam later and give him shit for his flippant attitude, because clearly he had a reason to be worried.

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“So what happened?” he asks again as Officer Mills pulls out onto the street.

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“Well, your friend…”

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“Castiel. Cas.”

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“Cas, right. I won’t lie to you, he has some injuries, but he’s awake and talking. After he gave the doc his name I was able to look up his address. He didn’t have anything on him when he came in.” 

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“What? Why not?”

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“I think it’s likely he got mugged.”

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“Fuck,” Dean exhales, banging the back of his head against the seat. By the time they park, check in at the visitor's desk, and find the elevator, he’s a jumble of nerves. The car they get on is loaded with people and stops at every single floor up to the fourth, and Dean is grateful that Cas isn't on a higher floor. They follow the signs in the corridor to the right place, but he stops outside the room to take a deep breath and put on a relaxed air before sticking his head through the open doorway, knocking on the jamb to announce his arrival.

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The smile he'd prepared slides off his face as he takes in the sight of Cas, who turns his head towards the sound. 

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"Dean," he says with obvious relief, closing his eyes and taking a shuddering breath.

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“I’ll wait out here for a bit,” Officer Mills says, and Dean enters the room alone, studying Cas closely.

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His face is bruised, and there's a bandage across part of his forehead. His right arm is in a cast from the elbow down, and though there's a sheet covering him at the waist it seems like his left leg is also in a cast judging by the bulky look of it. 

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"Jesus," Dean says, gripping at the bars on the side of the bed. 

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"No, Cas," he replies wryly. "Guess I haven’t lost my sense of humor at least.”

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"Who the fuck did this to you?"

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"Well, _this,_ " Cas says, gesturing to his head, "is a total mystery. The rest of it," he sweeps his left arm over the rest of his body, "seems to be the result of a car that hit me when I stumbled into the street. The person who hit me was nice enough to call the ambulance, though."

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"You got hit by a _car?_. Was this right after you left the bar?" 

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Cas grimaces, and Dean's not sure what it means. _Did_ Cas find someone to hook up with? Maybe he was on his way home from the hook-up when everything happened, and he’s embarrassed to say so. They’ve never kept any secrets from each other -- _you have,_ his brain supplies, but he shrugs it off -- and the thought that Cas might be living a secret life that Dean’s not privy to is an option he’d never considered before. It gives him a sinking feeling inside, and he's not sure what to make of it, but it's not the most important thing he should be focusing on right now. "I don't even know where to start. What does the doc say? Do you have a concussion? How bad are the breaks? How long are you stuck in here?"

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"Dean. _Dean_. Calm down." Cas reaches across his body with his good arm and places a hand over Dean's, where it’s clutching the rail so hard his knuckles have gone white. He relaxes his grip at the touch and lets out a long breath. Cas is okay. It's going to be okay. The door opens, and a woman with long, dark hair and bright eyes enters the room, her white coat belying her purpose there.

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"You must be Dean," she says, reaching out a hand for him to shake. "I'm Dr. Barnes." Her grip is firm but perfunctory, and she looks at Cas when she pulls away. He gives her a barely perceptible nod, and she turns her attention back to him.

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"Castiel has given me permission to tell you about his injuries, in the absence of any next of kin."

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"Oh, well, I'm his emergency contact anyway." It had been a very emotionally charged discussion after the Novaks disowned him. With no other immediate family, Cas had fretted over who he should contact in just this type of scenario, and Dean had readily volunteered. Cas had resisted, given him all manner of excuses, said it should be something for family. Dean's response had been "you _are_ my family" and that was that. “So how many broken bones are we dealing with here?”

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"Unfortunately Mr. Winchester, the issue is a little more complicated. You see, in addition to his physical injuries, Mr. Novak is suffering from post-traumatic, retrograde amnesia. He seems to be missing some things that occurred before the accident."

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"Like certain events?"

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"Like certain years," Cas says wryly.

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	3. My mind is muddy but my heart is heavy

**“How wickedly life has made a lesson out of me”**

\-- _Turn the Clock Back_ , Karma

"Years?" Dean asks, certain he heard incorrectly. He stares at Cas. "What's the last thing you remember?" he asks gently, trying not to let his own panic bleed into his voice, because he can't imagine how freaked out his best friend must be. Cas squints his eyes, and it looks like he's struggling to remember.

"We were at a party. Hosted by that sorority of your friend Charlie? You tried to teach me to do a keg stand. I failed miserably."

Dean knows the exact party he's talking about. "That was freshman year. It was the Spring Fling at Phi Sigma Sigma."

"Yes, Spring Fling." Cas relaxes against the pillows, relief evident on his face, like he was afraid that memory wasn't even real. "After that it’s just impressions, foggy parts. It's like I know there's something _there_ , but I can't figure out what it is.” 

“Mr. Novak, often in cases like these the memories come back over time as the body heals. It’s important to remember that your brain has suffered a trauma just as your body has. There’s nothing you can do to force it. It’s entirely likely that your memories are intact, but you just can’t access them right now.”

“It feels like I'm just hung over from the party. How can that have been four years ago?" He turns to Dean sharply. “Dr. Barnes called my mom, and she said we haven't spoken in over a year. Why?"

"Cas," he says, reaching out as though to take his hand, then thinking better of it. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your folks, they...they aren't coming. I'm afraid you're going to be stuck with me for your recovery."

Dean glances at the doc, wondering if he should ask her to leave the room, but he can tell from the look on her face that she's already spoken to Naomi Novak and didn't enjoy the conversation one bit.

"I'll leave you two alone for a few minutes while I go talk to Officer Mills," she says, making the choice for him, then swiftly leaves the room. Cas looks at him expectantly, and he swallows.

"Okay, I don't want to upset you, but I think you need to hear this so you don't keep trying to contact them. Just know that you still have me and all our friends, okay?"

"I do?"

"Yeah, man, of course you do." He clears his throat. "Last year, your folks flew in for graduation. They took you out for a fancy dinner afterwards, just a family affair.” More that they didn't want to slum it with Dean and Sam and Bobby. He grimaces, knowing that Cas won't remember how unimpressed the Novaks were with him and his family. Naomi Novak had taken one glance at Bobby's well-worn baseball cap and suddenly looked like her face had frozen the last time she’d sucked on a straw. "A couple of hours later you called and asked me if I could come and pick you up at the restaurant." He shuffles his feet a little, looking away. 

"What happened?"

"You, uh, you came out of the closet over dessert, and they didn't take it well."

Cas turns away from him to stare up at the ceiling, eyes pooling with tears. "Of course not. I can't imagine ever being comfortable telling them, because I know how they are. Or my mother, at least. My father doesn't ever seem to have too much to say." He blinks the tears away and turns back to Dean. "Right now I can't even imagine a scenario where I tell them."

"Yeah, well. I don't think you were fully prepared for them to stalk out of the restaurant and leave you there alone. They stuck you with the check, as I recall." He didn’t have a favorable opinion of the Novaks before that happened, but seeing how broken Cas was when he finally got there made him angry and fiercely protective. 

"I'm sorry I interrupted your own family celebration with my problems," Cas says, closing his eyes, but they fly open again when Dean starts laughing.

"You said almost the exact same thing when I picked you up that night. Maybe it’s just like the doc says: that information is still in there, somewhere, and will come back to you eventually." He reaches out to pat Cas's left hand, and this time actually makes contact. He restrains himself from threading their fingers together.

"I hope so. What if I get lost in my own life? Do I have a job? How will I do it if I can’t remember anything? How will I support myself?"

"Hey, hey, Cas, calm down."

"I don't even know where I _live_ , Dean!"

"You live with _me_ , Cas. It's going to be okay, I'll help you get through this. We all will."

"We all _who_?" 

"Cas, whether you can remember them or not, there are a lot of people in your life that care about you."

Cas shakes his head from side to side on the pillow, tears of frustration leaking from the corners of his eyes as he takes deep breaths. "Dean, I've known you less than a year," he whispers. "I mean, obviously that's not true, but that's how it _feels_ for me."

Dean looks at him for a few minutes, trying to reconstruct the period of time that is now Cas's present. "I know, but come on, Cas. You're my best friend. You're safe with me, I promise."

Cas takes several deep breaths, then closes his eyes. "Okay, Dean. Okay." 

*******

Officer Mills takes a statement from him, but there’s really nothing he can tell her, and she gives him a soft look when he asks if the driver of the car that hit him will be okay. 

“You scared them quite a bit, but they’ll be just fine, and they won’t be charged with anything,” she assures him.

“That’s good. Could you tell them how sorry I am?” 

“Of course,” she says with a small smile. “You should know I found evidence of a scuffle in the alley near the accident, but there’s very little to go on. There’s very little chance we’ll be able to recover any of your belongings.” 

“I suppose not,” he says, biting his lip. “I’ll have to get new stuff, a new phone and bank cards and…”

“I’ll help you,” Dean says quickly, earning a soft look of his own from her. 

By the time the officer finally leaves it’s dinner time, and Cas realizes he doesn’t know when he last ate. The chicken and broccoli don’t look very appetizing but he eats a little before pushing the tray away.

“Do you want me to go?” Dean asks. “Visiting hours aren’t over until eight, but if you’re tired I can leave.”

He is tired, so tired, but he doesn’t want to be alone. 

“Would you stay until then?” he whispers, and Dean nods, pulling his chair closer and grabbing the remote control from the bedside table. 

“Let’s find something terrible to watch,” he says, turning on the TV. As he flips through the channels Cas studies his profile. Dean is clearly older than Cas remembers him to be, his features sharper somehow, though not drastically changed. It’s comforting in a way, like a bridge between two points that he doesn’t remember having crossed. 

Cas relaxes into the pillows as he studies him, and he can feel all the trauma of the past day pulling him under. Something is stirring in his memory and he reaches out, trying to grasp it, but it eludes him. He keeps his eyes unfocused, hoping maybe it will leap into his mind if he doesn't try too hard. 

Instead he falls asleep listening to Dean surfing through the TV channels: pausing on a commercial, then a drama, then a different one, the sound turning into white noise like a lullaby.

_head...hurts..._

_can't see_

_bright light_

_salvation_

_falling and_

_pain_

_screams_

_and pain_

_Cas!_

_a dark tunnel_

_"give me”_

_pain_

Cas!

_Noooo_

"Cas!" 

He opens his eyes and sucks in a breath so sharply that he starts to cough, his upper body wracked with spasms as strong hands grip his shoulders hard enough to bruise.

"You're okay, Cas, you're okay, I'm here, you're getting air into your lungs, just keep breathing, you're okay," Dean says, his voice softening as he repeats himself over and over. Cas blinks, trying to clear his blurred vision, and it takes a few minutes before he realizes he's crying. He's gotten into a sitting position somehow as he coughed, and he slumps against the arms holding him up. Dean just pulls him to his chest and wraps one arm around his back as he reaches for something with the other hand, whispering something Cas can't make out.

"What?" His voice is raspy and strained from the coughing, and his throat hurts a little. 

"I said drink a little water, here." Cas pulls back a bit as Dean brings the tumbler closer, holding it for him as he takes a couple of careful sips from the straw, then placing it back on the bedside table. He helps Cas lie back down. "I'm going to go get the nurse, okay?" Cas nods, not trusting himself to speak, and Dean leaves the room. 

His arms feel too heavy to reach up and wipe away the tears he can't control, and his head feels even heavier. He lets his eyes roam around the room as he waits for Dean to come back. There's a curtain drawn around the other bed, blocking the view to the window, and he can hear low chatter as the occupant on that side watches TV, oblivious to Cas's predicament. He wishes the curtain were open, just so he could see the other person. He has the passing thought that this situation is like a metaphor for his entire life: hurt and alone, cut off from the thing he wants just on the other side of the room, but blocked from it from forces beyond his control. 

_What does that mean?_

He ponders the thought for a few moments, but the answer doesn't come. 

"I'm all alone," he whispers to the room, and that prospect is more terrifying than his injuries. 

*******

"Kid, what the hell did you do?" 

“What are you talking about?”

Officer Jody Mills sits down heavily at the counter of the Wayward Diner, crossing her arms on the surface in front of her and fixing Patience with a stern look. “Don’t play coy with me, missy.” 

“I’m not,” Patience hisses, looking around, but the only other customer is in a booth beyond the other end of the counter. “I just don’t know what you’re talking about,” she continues in a whisper as she turns a mug right-side up and starts to pour from the coffee pot in her other hand. 

Jody sighs, pulling the cup towards her when Patience finishes and tearing a packet of Equal into it. She raises an eyebrow at her as she stirs, then taps the spoon three times on the lip before putting it down next to the saucer.

“I was at the hospital earlier to take a statement,” she says before raising the mug, blowing on the surface of the hot liquid. “Nice young man. Touch of familiar magic on him.” Patience feels a swooping sensation in her gut, as if her heart is on an elevator all by itself and the car just dropped into the basement. 

_Your visions are subjective._

Jody studies her as she sips her coffee, but doesn’t say anything else. 

“Dark hair? Blue eyes?” 

“Friend of yours?” Jody asks pointedly, and Patience shakes her head. 

“Not exactly, just a regular,” she says and Jody pinches the bridge of her nose. 

“Your gran is going to be pissed when she finds out you’re dosing the customers.”

“I’m not _dosing_ anybody,” Patience says, putting the coffee pot back on the warmer. “I just...I just wanted to help. He’s always so nice, but so sad. I just thought he could use a boost.” She turns to face Jody again. “What was he doing at the hospital?”

“Sorry, kid. Confidential. But you better prepare yourself for what’s gonna happen when Missouri hears about this.”

Patience crosses her arms in petulant defiance. “Since it’s confidential, I guess I don’t need to worry about her finding out.”

Jody just chuckles and shakes her head. “That’s what you think.”

*******

Dean spends the entire day at the hospital on Sunday trying to refamiliarize Cas with his life. He doesn't want to talk about the nightmare, and he's anxious and upset by turns, especially when Dean hands him his favorite hoodie.

Cas fingers the ends of the sleeves that are starting to fray, the front pocket that is partially unstitched, frowning at the strings that he has a tendency to chew on when he's doing work on his laptop at their tiny table. 

"Is this...is this the same hoodie that you bought me at the homecoming game?" 

"Yeah, man. You wear it constantly.” Cas had been filled with school spirit even though he didn’t understand anything about football. “I've been trying to throw it out for months, but you won’t let me." Cas takes a shuddering breath, covering his face with one hand, and too late Dean realizes his mistake. For Cas that game was six months ago, and this sweatshirt is still brand new in his mind. "Shit," he says, sitting down hard in the chair. "I'm so sorry, Cas, it was stupid of me. I didn't think..." 

"It's okay," Cas says. "Clearly, I still love this shirt. Maybe it will help." He drapes it over himself like a blanket, since the IV drip will impede his ability to wear it right now. 

"Well, you definitely did not have these freshman year," Dean says as he rummages in the bag between his feet, shaking something out with a flourish. It’s a pair of flannel sleep pants, also worn soft from use like the hoodie. 

"What the hell?" Cas sounds both surprised and delighted, and Dean feels a little better about this choice. The material is bright blue, covered with cartoon hives and bumblebees that look thrilled to be alive. 

"Do you remember when you came home with me for Christmas break?"

"Yes," Cas says, and there's a little bit of worry in his voice. "Did I get these as a gift?" 

"Not that year," Dean says quickly, reassuring Cas he hasn't forgotten something important from that time just a few months in the past he _does_ remember. "You and Sam hit it off so well, though, and there was that one night that you watched some dorky ass movie..."

" _The Secret Life of Bees_ is a perfectly good film based on a great book, Dean..."

"...and then the two of you were up until after midnight talking about endangered bees..."

"Because it's a fascinating subject, and clearly your little brother is more aware of the world at large than you are."

"...and I swear the reason Sam got so damn tall is because he needed a huge container for all the goddamn nerd he already had in him at fifteen..."

"Sam got tall?"

"...but the next year for Christmas he gave you some weird German bee documentary on DVD and these stupid pants, which you also wear all the time just to annoy me."

Cas is just grinning down at the pajamas like a fool now, and it warms Dean inside. 

"I want to wear them, but they won't fit over my cast." Instead he drapes them on the sheet covering his legs, idly rubbing the material between his fingers as he relaxes against the pillows, his other hand over the hoodie across his stomach. "Tell me some more things about that Christmas."

Dean tells him everything he can remember, not just about that holiday but the months leading up to it. Cas asks him a lot of things about their current living situation, their jobs, and the night of his accident.

"We went out after work, because I wanted to tell you about what happened that day. We'd eaten, had a few drinks, shot the shit for a few hours. You left while I was up at the bar."

"I just got up and left?"

"Yeah, when I looked back at the table you were gone, man. Lisa said she saw you leave by yourself."

"Lisa?" Dean mentally kicks himself, but then realizes even _with_ his memory Cas would have no idea who that is.

"Some girl I was talking to at the bar. She saw you put on your coat and leave, but I don't know where you went after that. Usually I leave before you."

"Do we not usually leave together?" 

"Well," Dean says, rubbing his palms on his jeans. They're sweating all of a sudden, and he shifts in the chair, which he only now realizes is uncomfortable. "We do when I don't hook-up with someone." Cas's eyes dart off to the side, and Dean knows that look. It's his thinking face. He puts it on whenever he's trying to unravel a particular problem. 

"How do I usually get home after you ditch me?" 

Dean freezes, because he realizes he doesn't actually know. He never asked. Cas would just be there every morning when he woke up, sometimes chatting amicably to the pretty stranger he'd encountered in his own apartment, because he was always polite. 

"Uh, well, it's close to the apartment so I guess you just walk?"

"Well, that would explain how I got mugged and then threw myself in front of a car."

"Dude!"

"What? Is my assessment of the situation as a third-party observer to it making you uncomfortable?" He tilts his head at Dean, examining him closely. "I can't be held accountable for what I say, Dean. I have head trauma."

"Which hasn't alleviated your sass at _all_ , apparently." He rubs his face. "Is that what it looks like? That I ditch you at the bar to go home with randos?" 

"Not _looks like_ as much as _exactly is_ that thing, yeah. Do I ever go home with anybody?"

"Never."

"Yeah, that sounds like me."

"Christ, the new you is blunt."

"Technically this is past me." 

"Well, I never remember past you being so damn forthright." Cas just shrugs, and Dean is at a loss for what to say. The way Cas describes things makes him sound like a jerk, and he hates it -- not because he disagrees, but because he’s worried that Cas has always had this perspective, but kept it to himself so as not to hurt Dean’s feelings. 

_Worthless. I don’t deserve to have him as a friend, much less…_

He bites his lip, brushing away the errant thought and worrying about a different one instead.

Castiel no longer remembers the years that he invested in Dean as a friend, and looks at his behavior through a lens unclouded by their experiences together. 

_What if this time around he decides I'm not worth knowing?_

*******

Dean hates leaving Cas alone in the hospital when he goes back to work, but he wants to save any time off for whenever he gets released. Instead, he gets daily updates from Charlie and Benny, who volunteered to go visit him even when they were told about the amnesia. Dean worried that Charlie’s vivaciousness and Benny’s broad frame would intimidate Cas just as they had years ago, but both of them report that their visits are going well. 

Dean spends a lot of his work time on Google, reading everything he can about the causes of retrograde amnesia, his desperation to fix it an unconscious compulsion to click on link after link after link.

All he learns is that the condition is varied and mysterious, and there's no way to treat it except to be patient and hope for the best, just like Dr. Barnes said. He shouldn’t have expected to do better than her assessment with an internet search.

He heads to the hospital each day after work, determined not to let his despair show on his face. He needs to be the strong one for Cas -- not just because he has no one else, but because he's the most important person in Dean's life.

_He is?_

The thought gives him pause one evening as he rides the hospital elevator, hands in his pants pockets with his jacket slung over one wrist, leaning against the back of the car and staring idly at his dress shoes. No, Sam is the most important person in his life and always will be, but...maybe Cas is just as important to him. Maybe he never realized just how much until he thought something terrible had happened to him.

_Something terrible_ has _happened to him,_ he thinks, banging the back of his head against the wall, _and I don't know how to fix it._

The chime as he reaches the right floor startles him out of his contemplation, and he pushes off the wall of the elevator and heads down the corridor. The door to Cas’s room is open, but he knocks on the jamb anyway before he pokes his head in. 

A young lady with dark hair is removing a blood pressure cuff from Cas's good arm, and she smiles at Dean. "Come on in, I'm all finished with your boyfriend." 

"He's just my roommate, Alex," Cas says tiredly, leaning back on his pillows. She looks at Dean, abashed, and he just waves it off. 

"Easy mistake," he says, but there's an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach as she passes by him on her way out the door. He drapes his suit jacket on the back of the empty chair by the bed before he sits. 

Cas turns to look at Dean, his face drawn. "Why am I so exhausted when I've done nothing but lie in one place all day?"

"Because healing takes a toll on the body," says a familiar voice from the doorway. Dr. Barnes comes in with a smile for both of them. "You're going to be very fatigued, even when you're barely moving around." She checks the bandage on his head, then peers into his eyes with a penlight. "I have some great news."

"You found my memory underneath the couch cushions?" he asks with such seriousness that she freezes for a moment before she laughs outright. 

"No, but clearly you found your humor in the sock drawer," she replies, and Dean chuckles to himself. 

"In the morning they're going to take out the catheter."

"Strangers are going to yank out a tube that was forcefully inserted into my penis while I was unconscious and that's great news? That says a lot about the rock bottom I'm currently living on," Cas grumbles, adjusting his blankets. "How is this pleasant?"

"It means you can go home tomorrow afternoon. There's really not much more we can do for you here, and your insurance company is making us kick you out. Don't get me started on _that_ ," she says, rolling her eyes before turning her attention to Dean. "Is there wheelchair access into your apartment? He won't be able to walk with crutches until his arms comes out of that cast, and he's going to need a lot of help in the meantime."

"God this is _embarrassing._ " 

Dean opens his mouth to argue, but the look on Cas's face stops him, one full of helpless terror before it flickers away and is replaced with a petulant scowl. Cas has put up a good front the last few days, but the reality of his situation is that he's adrift on an ocean with a boat full of people he barely knows, and he has no choice but to put his life in their hands. It's no surprise to Dean that Cas is doing everything he can to act nonchalant since the accident, because he's always adjusted his own behavior to make the people around him comfortable. Dean curses himself for being lulled by that instead of trying to actually put himself in his friend's shoes.

"Cas,” he says, leaning forward onto his knees. "I know you're scared, and I know that you feel like we haven't known each other long, but I promise that I’m here for you." Cas closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths, and Dean reaches out to cover the hand on his injured arm with his own palm. Dr. Barnes reminds Dean that visiting hours end at eight, and then leaves them alone in the room. 

"You don't have to pretend you're handling all this fine to make me comfortable," Dean finally says, taking his hand away with some difficulty and sitting back in the chair. "Maybe I'm not your best friend right now, as far as you know, but you're still mine. I can take whatever it is you're going through." 

"I, I'm, I..." Cas inhales sharply, letting the air out through his nose as though he's counting to ten as he does it, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "I'm scared, Dean. I feel like a prisoner in an alternate universe. A place that I know, but it's not quite _right_." He turns to look at Dean, no longer masking the emotion on his face. "You seem to be the only thing that's constant, even if you're not quite what I expect."

They stare at one another, and Dean reaches out again, this time placing his hand firmly on Cas’s chest.

"You can use me as an anchor. We're family, Cas, even if you can't feel it right now." Cas swallows hard, then nods. 

*******

“Child, what have you done?”

Patience looks at the stout, dark-skinned woman standing in the kitchen with a hand on her hip and a look of derisive judgement on her face. She gives Donna a piercing look over the woman's shoulder, but Donna feigns ignorance and starts whistling as she scrambles eggs on the flat-top. 

"I can't believe you told her."

"She wouldn't have to tell me things if you'd remember the rules we try to keep to in here." Missouri rolls her eyes and walks closer to Patience, reaching up to cup her chin gently. "I know you mean well, girl, I do. You have a pure spirit and a good heart. But magic is like a willful child. It responds well to order and discipline, but if you don't keep to a strict structure it will find opportunities to lash out with chaos."

"I didn't do anything harmful, I swear!" She backs away from Missouri's touch, crossing her arms over herself as though she's cold. “I just thought he could use a pick me up.”

"The forlorn fellow with the blue eyes? The one who's in love with his best friend?"

"You betcha, that's the one," Donna says, eyes on the tickets above her head as the grill simmers. 

"I couldn't give him what he wished for, and it was so improbable that I thought..." She shrugs. "I thought it couldn't hurt."

"What couldn't hurt, exactly?" Missouri gives her a look that brooks no argument, but Patience's words are stuck in her throat.

"I...I, um..."

"She dusted him with luck," Donna volunteers without even turning around, scooping the eggs onto a plate along with a generous portion of hash browns. Patience glares, but Donna ignores her. 

"What is the third of Seelie's laws?" Missouri asks. 

" _Magic can only be bestowed upon those who do not knowingly seek it_ ," Patience says automatically, and Missouri shakes her head.

"That's the second one. Third is _only an unselfish wish can ever truly be granted_. No matter what follows, any statement that begins with _I wish I_ is going to be selfish. Couple that with something unattainable and you're courting disaster. I doubt he really meant whatever he said, but thanks to you the magic sought to punish his transgression by granting his wish."

"So it wasn't completely unselfish. She still didn't need to tattle." 

"I didn't need her to tell me, girl. I just wanted to see if you would own up to it."

"Did you have a vision?" Patience should have known she'd never get away with it. Her grandma has the Sight in addition to her other gifts, and though she's inherited that as well, she hasn't mastered it any more than her magic or her impulse control. 

"Of course not. I can read is all." She smacks a newspaper against Patience's chest as she marches past her and through the doors, grabbing the breakfast plate as she passes behind the counter to take it to whatever customer ordered it. "We're not finished discussing this," she says through the window as she walks away. Patience glances at the page turning it right side up so she can read what Missouri has circled there. 

_**Local Man Mugged, Then Hit by Car** _

"I don't understand," she says, reading through the article. "He wanted to go back in time, which is impossible. How does sprinkling him with luck make the magic respond to that wish with _this_ chain of events?"

Donna cracks a bunch of eggs on the flat-top and twirls the spatula in her hand like a gunslinger in the Old West before pointing it at her.

"By giving him amnesia."

Missouri comes back into the kitchen just as Patience sinks to the floor, hugging her knees in despair. 

"Why?" she asks in a small voice, and her grandmother sighs, looking down with her hands on her hips. "His wish was harmless." 

"I knew letting your daddy have his way about raising you outside of the life would have consequences. What did he wish for? Can you remember the exact words?" 

Patience bites her lip, thinking hard. "Not exactly, something like 'I wish I could go back to before I fell in love'." 

"So he had a terrible accident that caused him to lose his memory,” Missouri muses. “Not all of it, I’d wager. Knowing the magic, it’s probably back to just before he fell for that boy. Hopefully it wasn't that long ago."

Missouri puts out a hand, pulling Patience to her feet once she takes it. 

"How can I fix it?" 

Missouri reaches up to pat her cheek. "You can't. What's done cannot be undone. _That_ is why we keep to the laws, child, because a good deed is sometimes a curse."


	4. My reflection troubles me

**“I wish I could rewrite the stories of the past,**

**but you can't go back and change what's done”**

\-- _Second Guess_ , You + Me

Dean comes home after visiting hours and frantically cleans the entire apartment, rearranging things to make it easier for Cas to navigate. He takes the entire next day off work, even though Cas isn’t being discharged until the afternoon, and talks Charlie into going with him in the morning to buy a brand new couch. 

He knows Cas will be stuck at home for a while as he heals, and Dean knows from experience that the Goodwill sofa they’ve had since they moved in isn’t comfortable for more than an hour. He explains all this to Charlie as they browse, and she gives him an odd look. 

"What?"

"Sometimes I wonder how you breathe with your head so far up your ass, that's all."

"What the hell are you talking about?" 

She just just sighs and shakes her head. “What about this one? It has a recliner on each end, and this center part folds down. Look,” she says, lowering the back of the middle section with a flourish. “Cup holders!”

He gives her a look before he lets himself be distracted by the change of subject. In the end he buys the couch and pays for same day delivery, so it will be there when he and Cas get home from the hospital. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you spend so much money on yourself, Winchester,” Charlie says as Dean fills out the delivery paperwork.

“It’s not for me, though,” he says, writing out directions to their apartment for the driver. “I mean, I’ll benefit from it, sure, but I don’t want Cas trying to recuperate with rusty springs jabbing him in the back.”

Charlie follows him silently out to the car, but fixes him with a piercing stare after she fastens her seatbelt. 

“You trying to assuage your guilty conscious with this? I know you’re blaming yourself because Cas got jumped on the way home after you got distracted by some pretty face.”

He turns to argue, but clenches his jaw and turns away to start the car.

_How do I usually get home after you ditch me?_

“Come on, Charlie,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road so he won’t have to meet her gaze. 

“I’m not fooled by you, Winchester. You pull that dick move a lot?”

“You take home random pick ups all the time, why is it a dick move when I do it?”

“Because I don’t treat my roommate as a relationship proxy and then abandon him whenever I have the opportunity to get my dick wet, that’s why. How many times have you done that?”

“I don’t know!” he says vehemently, not as angry with Charlie as he is with himself, because he realizes he actually doesn’t know. He turns onto her street, then pulls to a stop in front of her house. “What do you mean, relationship proxy?”

“You know, the way you act like Cas is your plus one for everything in life until your heteronormativity flares up.”

He blinks at her. “I’m not sure I understood all of that sentence.”

“Just think about it,” she says, unfastening her seatbelt and opening the door. She gets out of the car, turns to lean back in and peer at him. “Try not to let your feelings of guilt come off as...overly intense caring, okay? Things are confusing enough for Cas as it is.”

She pulls back and slams the car door, and Dean takes a couple of deep breaths. He knows what she’s getting at, but he knows that all his reasons for keeping Cas at arm’s length won’t matter to her. A certain amount of distance is necessary, or he runs the risk of losing his best friend.

_Like you did before?_

He stares at Charlie’s front door long after she’s closed it before he puts the car back into drive and makes his way home.

*******

Dean is still thinking about his conversation with Charlie when he finally goes to pick Cas up late that afternoon. 

"You doing okay?" 

Cas bites his lip, twisting the hem of his shirt in his good hand as he sits in the passenger seat of the Impala. 

"How far is it to our place?" he asks timidly. Dean had told him all about their apartment and where it was located, but Cas's memories don't extend beyond the time when most of the city was still new and unfamiliar to him. Dean reaches over to pat him gently on the knee, just above the cast.

"It's okay to be scared, man. I understand." He takes his hand back as if it burns, then swallows before he navigates out of the hospital parking lot and onto the main street. "We're about fifteen or twenty minutes away."

"Ah, I see. In Lead Foot Adjusted Terms, we'll be home in ten minutes." He gives Dean a sideways glance. "I haven't forgotten how you drive, Dean." 

Dean laughs lowly at that, and some of the nervous tension bleeds away. This is easy, him and Cas, teasing each other. It’s just how it should be. "You've got me there, but the sooner we get you home the sooner you can get some actual sleep." Cas leans his head back against the seat with a frustrated exhale. 

"I'm going to sleep uninterrupted for twenty-four hours straight. I'm just warning you now so you don't think I died." Dean swallows hard, keeping his eyes on the road as he tries not to think about how close Cas came to exactly that. "Sleep heals the body, but every few hours there was someone poking me, testing for something or taking vitals. Why do they make it so impossible to sleep in a fucking hospital?" 

Dean has no answer for that but Cas doesn't seem to expect one, turning his head and taking in the passing scenery as they make their way through the city. 

“Hey,” he says, sitting up straight. “Can we go there?”

“You know this place?” Dean asks, glancing at him as he slows down to pull into the parking lot. 

“I’m not sure. It seems really familiar,” Cas says, turning to keep his eyes on the building as Dean parks. “Have we ever come here before?”

Dean turns off the engine and turns to look at him. “Yeah, Cas. We started coming here our senior year, since it’s so close to the apartment.”

They stare at one another, and Cas smiles at Dean in a way that makes his heart skip. _Control yourself, Winchester._

“Come on,” he says, getting out of the car and opening the trunk to get the wheelchair. He maneuvers Cas in the way the orderly showed him when they wheeled Cas out of the hospital, then pushes him up the ramp and in through the front door of the _Wayward Diner._

They pause just inside, and a face familiar to Dean greets them. 

“What on earth happened to you?” says a tall, older woman, putting her hands on her hips as she peers down at Cas. “Sure looks like you took a tumble.”

“Hi Mildred,” Dean says, putting a hand on Cas’s shoulder. “You’re not wrong, but we’d rather not talk about it. I don’t suppose there’s anywhere we can sit without getting in the way?”

“Oh sure, honey,” she says, turning and gesturing for Dean to follow. She takes them to the other side of the diner, to a table that has a bench seat on one side and two chairs on the other. She removes a chair so Dean can move Cas up to the table, then winks at him as he slides onto the bench seat. “I’ll get you some water and a couple of menus,” she says, taking the chair with her.

Dean watches her go with a faint smile, then leans across the table to Cas, who is peering around with interest. 

“So? Recognize anything?”

“Not exactly, but this place really feels familiar. You said we come here all the time?”

“Probably once a week at least for the last couple of years,” Mildred says, appearing to place two glasses of water on the table before handing them each the menus she has tucked under her arm. “Don’t you boys know how to cook?” 

“Aw, Mildred, you know I’ll never make burgers as good as Missouri’s,” Dean says with a grin. 

“Don’t you flirt with me, young man,” Mildred says, winking at him. “Figure out what you want before I come back, even though you’re going to get the same thing as always.” She rolls her eyes before she walks away again, but Dean is happy to see that Cas is grinning.

“She’s fun. I like her.” He opens the menu, quickly scanning the contents before whispering at Dean. “What do I usually get?”

“Why don’t you pick something, and I’ll tell you if you’ve ordered it before.” 

Cas studies the menu as though he’s preparing for an exam. “All of this is preferable to hospital food,” he mutters, “but I can’t stop coming back to this deluxe bacon cheeseburger.”

“Is that so?” Dean asks, and then Mildred is back, order pad poised and ready. 

“Well?” she asks, and Dean laughs. 

“The usual for both of us,” he says, and she shakes her head as she takes the menus and walks away. 

“You’re kidding,” Cas says, but the relief on his face is obvious. 

“You haven’t forgotten how to be you, Cas. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

They don’t say much else before their food comes, and Cas’s eyes light up before he takes a tentative taste of his burger.

"I remember this," he says, taking a more generous bite. "I think I missed this? But I can't remember having it. It's...it's a very strange sensation.” 

"It's progress, I'm sure of it. Maybe as these sensations pile up, they'll become more concrete."

"Yes," Cas says, thinking. He chews slowly, as though mulling over what he remembers before he swallows. "You feel more familiar to me than anything."

That statement makes warmth spread through Dean’s chest, but he doesn't know how to respond. Cas just goes back to eating and doesn't say anything else, and Dean finally does the same.

*******

“Fancy seeing you here during daylight hours! Your handiwork just left, girlie. Missed him by about twenty minutes.”

“What do you mean?” Patience says to Mildred as she hangs up her coat in the back. 

“That boy you dusted with magic was in here with his friend, heading home from the hospital. He’s a mess, frankly. Has to be in a wheelchair because he broke an arm as well as a leg. Didn’t seem to recognize me, either, so I think his brains got rattled. Whatever you did, it was a doozy.” She pats Patience on the shoulder as she passes her, putting on her own coat.

“What makes you so sure all of that is my fault?” she says defensively, crossing her arms and glaring, but Mildred just laughs.

“Kiddo, you can’t hide anything from a savvy old broad like me, but I’m not your gran. I don’t have to patiently explain things to you so you don’t act foolish. Besides, that’s what you young people are supposed to do.” 

She smiles as she finishes her buttons, then leaves through the back door. Patience stands there for a moment in stunned silence, then storms into the kitchen. 

*******

It’s well after dark by the time they get back to the apartment but thankfully the garage isn’t full yet, and Dean finds a spot with an empty space on the passenger side that leaves plenty of room to work with. Cas turns in the seat and puts both feet out, using his hands to move his bulky leg cast. Dean grips his good hand and pulls him carefully to stand with his weight on his good leg, then helps him do a quarter turn and sit carefully in the wheelchair. 

"You're a fantastic dance partner," Cas says drily once he's seated, and Dean just shakes his head as he pushes him to the elevators. The one that arrives is empty, and remains so as they rise to their floor uninterrupted. Their apartment is across from the elevator and just to the right, so it's not long before Dean is opening the door and helping Cas inside. 

It's far from fancy, but it's certainly a lot better than the cramped dorm rooms they shared for three years. There's a living room to the left, with just a half wall that separates it from the galley kitchen beyond. They have a small table and chairs against the half wall, though they almost never sit there to eat. Past the kitchen is the door to Dean's room, and to the right is the small hallway that leads to Cas's bedroom and the bathroom they share. He holds his breath as Cas wheels himself clumsily into the main room, turning his head to take it all in. His eyes finally come to rest on the leather sofa that seems incongruous with all the other things in the room, like the sagging bookcase and the battered coffee table. Dean holds his breath, but Cas says nothing before wheeling himself towards the hall. _Why would he?_ Dean realizes stupidly. _It's not like he knows it's new_. 

"Which room is mine?" Cas asks. 

"It's, uh, down there," Dean says as he gestures down the hall. "The one on the left. The other door is the bathroom." 

Dean's own bedroom is sparsely decorated, just a few framed photographs of him and Sam as kids, and one of the whole Winchester family before his mom died, Sam still less than a year old. In contrast, Cas’s bedroom is a riot of color and chaos. Prints of autumn leaves in the rain and spectacular sunsets cover the walls, the sheets a bold pattern in complete contrast with the equally bold comforter atop them, and brightly colored clothes folded in a stack on a bright orange chair in the corner. 

"This feels like me," Cas says after a moment, looking around. "I mean, I don't recognize anything, but...everything feels _right_." He strokes the bedding with its wild paisley pattern and smiles, and a surge of affection rises in Dean's chest. 

"Well, I know you're exhausted and could really use some sleep. Want help getting into the bed?"

“Well, could you, um. Could you help me use the bathroom first?” Cas asks bashfully, and Dean mentally kicks himself. 

“Of course, sorry, come on.”

“Will my wheelchair fit in there?" 

"Barely, but I think we can manage without it if you just lean on me and let me walk you over." Dean ducks under Cas's left arm, grabbing his wrist with one hand and his waist with the other. They manage to carefully maneuver out into the hall and across to the bathroom. Dean holds himself stiffly as they go, not wanting to hurt Cas accidentally, but also because he's hyper aware of his warmth pressed up against his side. Eventually they get into the bathroom, and Cas braces one hand on the sink while he stands at the toilet. Dean backs out and shuts the door.

Cas makes a sound of relief as he empties his bladder for what seems like ten minutes. Dean waits just outside, not wanting to go too far in case he needs him. He hears a flush, then water running before the distinctive sound of teeth being brushed.

"I'm all done," Cas calls out a few minutes later, and Dean opens the door to Cas eyeing the shower stall with longing.

He flushes a bit as he braces himself to have Cas intimately pressed up against him as they make their way back to his room. After turning down the covers, Dean clasps his good hand and helps him pivot on his right leg, but Cas overbalances a little and falls against his chest, their joined hands pinned between them as Dean throws his other arm around Cas's waist to help steady him. He has the urge to hug him close, feel the warmth of him whole and alive, alleviate the anxiety that hasn't really left since he found out Cas had been hurt. Instead he pulls back a little, helping Cas sit on the bed, then lift his bad leg onto the mattress. Cas sighs as he reclines against the pillows, and Dean covers him with the blankets. 

"Want me to bring you a glass of water or anything?" he says softly, and Cas shakes his head as his eyes close. "Okay. Just yell if you need anything."

He's out of the room and closing the door when he hears Cas whisper. 

"Thank you, Dean."

He nods as he pulls the door closed but not shut, much the way he found it the morning he woke up and Cas was missing. He turns away to lean against the wall, sliding down until he's sitting on the floor of the hallway, elbows resting on his bent knees. Cas is home, Cas is safe, and Dean sits outside his door and thinks about how they'd been pressed together just now. He leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes, trying to resist the urge he feels to go back in the room and curl up next to him on the bed. 

_What is wrong with me? It’s never been so hard to keep it together before._

*******

Dean jolts out of a fitful sleep to sounds of distress from down the hall. He flails out of bed, catching his foot on the blankets and nearly falling face first onto the floor. By the time he's gotten to his feet he can hear shouting from Cas’s bedroom, and as Dean gets into the room his head is whipping back and forth on the pillow.

"Cas!" he says sharply, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. "Cas, wake up!"

His eyes snap open, but his awakening isn't nearly as violent as it was that first time in the hospital, though he still reaches up to clutch at Dean's forearm. His breathing is ragged, his hair damp with perspiration, and Dean can see the wild look in his eyes even in the dim light from the bathroom across the hall.

"I'm sorry," he finally croaks out, and Dean just shakes his head

"Don't be." He takes in the forlorn look on Cas's face as he helps him lie back down. "Is there anything I can do to help?" Cas hesitates, and Dean can actually see the tension in the outline of his form in the darkness. "What is it?"

"Would you lie down with me?" Cas says, looking shocked at his own utterance, as if it so clearly crosses the boundaries of friendship that he can't believe he said it aloud. Before he can open his mouth to take it back, Dean circles the foot of the bed to the empty side and stretches out atop the covers. 

Dean lies on his side, one arm curled under the spare pillow, the other draped over his own hip with his fingers brushing against his stomach. Cas swallows, and Dean wonders if his throat hurts from all the shouting.

"How often did that happen in the hospital after the first time?" he asks softly, and Cas turns to look at the ceiling, thinking. 

"None that I remember."

Dean turns onto his back, putting his hands behind his head. 

"Do you want to tell me about it?" 

"I don't know how to describe it. It's just...fragments. I'm hurting and cold, stumbling in the dark somewhere. And there's a light, but it makes me hurt worse. That's when you woke me up, I think." 

Dean sighs. “I hate to think what would have happened if you'd fallen onto the floor before I got in here." Cas reaches across the divide between them and puts his cast-bound hand on Dean's shoulder. 

"You're here now."

"Yeah, Cas.” He clears his throat. “Go back to sleep, I'm not going anywhere."

Cas takes his hand back, letting it lie on the bed between them as they both stare at the ceiling, each lost in their own thoughts until they fall back asleep. 

*******

In the morning Dean helps Cas back into the bathroom, and leaves him to it while he goes to make them some breakfast. He scrambles some eggs while he microwaves bacon, listening to the toilet flush and then the water in the sink running while Cas brushes his teeth and washes himself as best he can.

_Maybe he'll let me help him shower. Wait, what?_

He freezes, spatula in one hand and pan with eggs in the other, until the beeping of the microwave gets him moving again. 

"Where the fuck is your head?" he mutters to himself as he pops an english muffin into the toaster before going to knock on the bathroom door. "You all done?"

"Yeah," Cas responds, and Dean inches the door open. Cas is staring at himself in the vanity mirror, running a hand over the scruff on his face. "I look...older. I don't remember my facial hair growing in this thick, either." 

"I've never seen it like this actually. You’re always clean shaven.” Dean likes the way it looks on him, though, rugged and tough. It makes his eyes stand out even more _and what the hell, Winchester?_

Cas tilts his head from side to side, sticking his chin out. "Maybe I'll let it go for a while. Grow a beard until I heal. Besides" --he holds up his right hand-- "this thing is kind of awkward, we probably shouldn't put anything sharp in it."

Dean laughs as he helps Cas turn around and make his way to the sofa, placing him on one end and showing him how to use the controls for the recliner before heading back to the kitchen. He puts together a breakfast sandwich for Cas, egg and bacon layered with cheese on a toasted english muffin, with a few more pieces of bacon besides. Cas smiles when he sees it and the huge mug of coffee Dean puts on the end table next to him.

"Thank you. This looks wonderful."

Dean knows. It’s Cas’s favorite, even if Cas doesn't remember. It wasn't until they'd moved out of the dorms that Dean cooking became a regular thing. 

He hates to leave Cas alone, but he needs to go into work this last day before the weekend, so he makes sure that Cas is comfortable enough before leaves: bundled under a quilt with water and snacks at hand, the wheelchair nearby in case he needs it.

He accomplishes very little throughout the day, but he's still out the door at exactly five o’clock, clutching the documents he picked up from HR with everything Cas has to fill out for short-term disability leave. He breathes an audible sigh of relief when he finally opens the door of his apartment to find Cas stretched out along the couch, sound asleep with the remote on his stomach and the Netflix screen of judgment on the TV. 

He closes the door as quietly as possible, then puts everything down on the table before reaching over to grab the remote. He responds to "Are you still watching?" with "No" and grins to see that Cas was streaming _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. 

It was the first thing Dean made him binge-watch when they became friends, appalled that his staunch upbringing had deprived him of so much quality television. He knew all the episodes so well that he would often find himself watching Cas instead, the enjoyment on his face a show all its own. Dean looks down on him now as he sleeps, and he reaches over to brush away the hair at his forehead but freezes before he makes contact. 

_What are you doing?_

He pulls his hand back quickly, then retreats into his bedroom and carefully shuts the door behind him, leaning his forehead against the wood and taking deep breaths.

 _What the hell is wrong with me? Am I just feeling overly protective because of the accident?_

He pushes away from the door to unbutton his shirt, changing out of his staid work attire into something more comfortable as he mulls it over. He's always felt like he had to take care of Cas, but ever since the accident it's been dialed up to eleven. He needs to get himself in check because he doesn't want to upset Cas, or make him feel like he's broken. 

Dean sits on the bed to pull off his socks, then puts his face in his hands. He could have lost his best friend. The closest he's ever come was when Cas was dating Inias, and he'd often stayed up late wondering what it would be like when they moved in together and Dean was left all alone. He knew they'd still be friends, but he'd hated the prospect of Cas spending all his time with someone else. 

_You act like Cas is your plus one for everything,_ Charlie had said.

 _You're his roommate, not his boyfriend._ Sam's words from the other day also spring to mind. _That's exactly how you're acting. It's how you_ always _act about Cas._

He shakes his head. He doesn't have time to think about this now, when there are more pressing things to worry about. He just needs to put his game face on and take care of Cas, while not being _overly intense_ about it, according to Charlie. Clearly she was trying to tell him that his mask is slipping, and he’s going to freak Cas out if he doesn’t keep his emotions in check around him.

He steels himself and heads out into the living room, leaning over the back of the couch to shake Cas awake. He startles at first, looking around, but when his eyes meet Dean's he relaxes and smiles.

"Hey, Cas. Do okay today?" 

Cas nods, wiping at his eyes. "It's actually really boring to lie around and do nothing for hours. Daytime television still sucks. Netflix has gotten way better though." He struggles to sit up, but he waves Dean off when he comes around to help. "No, I don't want to make you wait on me any more than you have to. I'm slow, but I can manage a little bit." He finally sits up properly, and Dean has to fight not to help him the whole time. "I even succeeded in getting into my chair and wheeling myself into the bathroom today."

"Yeah? How's your aim?" 

"Ha ha. Good enough to have not made a mess."

"Well, there probably wasn't a very big gap," Dean says without thinking, and nearly smacks himself in the face. Cas gives him a sly look, and Dean panics. _I am not thinking about the size of his penis, I am not thinking about the size of his penis…_ "So, pizza for dinner okay?"

He relaxes as they eat and watch more _Buffy_ , and it's so close to normal that he almost forgets about the accident. Later that night, he helps Cas get into bed just as he did before, and the unavoidable press of their bodies brings all his buried thoughts back to the forefront of his mind. 

He lies in his own bed, staring at the ceiling, watching sleep beckon provocatively from a distance while he holds his breath, listening as hard as he can to see if Cas has any other nightmares. 

"Christ," he mutters to himself in the dark. "You weren't even this bad with Sammy."

Even as much as he worried about his little brother -- when he was a baby, when he was sick, when he was just a kid who was both upset and relieved that their father had died -- Dean never lay awake at night, trying to discern any difference in his breathing. He wonders if it's guilt, like Charlie said, because Dean was too busy pursuing some random girl at the bar. Guilt that the person who means the most to him could have died while Dean was spending time with someone who meant nothing. He can’t count the number of random hookups he’s had over the years. All of them probably deserved better than being a part of a catalogue of nameless women that filters though his mind as he finally slips into fitful dreams.


	5. Remember rights that I did wrong

**“I'm worse at what I do best, and for this gift I feel blessed”**

\-- _Smells Like Teen Spirit_ , Nirvana

They settle into a routine over the next few weeks, and it's surprisingly domestic and easy. Dean makes breakfast most mornings before work, and dinner again in the evenings as they watch a movie. Cas confesses that being in Dean's company is the only time he doesn't feel the weight of the fog that clouds his brain. 

"I try not to think about it, but it's like having a mosquito bite that itches constantly. You know you shouldn't scratch it, but you're bound to unless you can put something on it to stop the itch." He rubs his eyes, the frustration evident on his face. "I try to just peek around the edges, but it gives me a headache." Cas runs a hand through his hair, which is getting shaggy and probably needs to be cut. "I've been going through everything on my work laptop, trying to get my bearings. It's weird."

"How so?"

"Well, the first day I freaked out a little because I actually _understood_ what all the emails mean, even though I don't remember any of the people sending them. It seems like I can access the knowledge of my job with no trouble, but remembering specific events or people from the last four years is still a sea of blank space."

“Like being in the diner.”

Cas nods. “Apparently it’s not uncommon with amnesia to retain certain knowledge, even if you're missing a huge swath of information."

"That's freaky."

"Yes. I certainly don't want to remember how to do my _job_ at the expense of everything else." He looks like he has more to say, but closes his mouth instead. 

"I think it's good that you remember things like that. It means that information is in there somewhere, it's just not accessible right now. Like it's behind a firewall, or something."

Cas looks pensive, biting his lip as he thinks about this. "You mean that maybe my life isn't completely lost to me? Maybe it's just sleeping?"

Sleeping better than Cas himself does most nights. 

The nightmares come without rhyme or reason, and each time Dean lies down on the bed next to him without being asked. Forced by his injuries to only lie on his back, Cas will turn his head to look at Dean, as though he needs to reassure himself he's not alone so he can go back to sleep. The last time, he'd calmed as soon as Dean touched him, running a hand through the sweat-damp hair on his forehead. Cas hadn’t even even woken up but Dean got on the bed regardless, curling towards him like a question mark, one hand reaching across and grasping his arm just above the cast.

Dean's always been a problem-solver, and knowing there's nothing he can do to fix Cas makes him feel useless. Instead he pampers him whenever he can, making elaborate meals on the weekends or bringing home food that he likes, even if he doesn't know it.

"What's that, Dean?" Cas asks one night, peering at the aromatic bag in Dean's arms.

"I stopped for Indian food after work." 

"We eat Indian food now?" 

Dean laughs as he drops his keys onto the bowl and heads into the kitchen, where he starts pulling out containers and grabbing plates out of the cabinets. "Yeah, man. I lost a bet with Charlie in junior year. You remember that Indian restaurant just off-campus?"

"The one that also, inexplicably, had pizza for five dollars and would deliver? Bombay House?"

"That's the one."

"But we only ever order the pizza because it's cheap and we're poor college students." He frowns. "Or we were."

"Yeah, well, the terms of Charlie's bet were that I had to go there with her and eat from the lunch buffet. You came along for solidarity, and then we couldn't stop eating. Charlie was worried they would kick us out but the lady that ran the place was thrilled." Dean opens a container, and the aroma of it seems to spark something as Cas turns awkwardly to peer over the back of the couch.

"Is that...aloo gobhi?" he asks curiously, and Dean gapes at him. "And, and naan?" He sniffs the air. "Garlic naan?"

"Yeah, Cas," Dean whispers, stunned. “You just relax and let me get this plated up for you." Cas slumps against the couch as Dean busies himself in the kitchen, soon waving a plate of steaming, spicy goodness under his nose. Cas waits until Dean is seated on the other side of the couch before he takes his first bite, and he hums appreciatively. 

"Holy shit. What do you remember?" 

Cas closes his eyes, as if he's searching. "I know it, but there's no context for _how_ I know it." He shakes his head. "I remember this is the dish I like even if I'm not sure how that came to be."

They eat in silence for a few minutes before Dean ventures to speak again.

"Hey, you’ve been cooped up in here for a while. I could ask Charlie and Benny to come over for a game night tomorrow? If you want." 

Cas seems to consider as he takes a bite of naan. 

"Do you think you could help me cover these casts and take an honest to God shower before they come? I've been bathing in the sink like an old-world peasant for ages." 

"I could, um, help, I guess." Dean drops his fork on the floor suddenly, and he mutters a curse as he fumbles after it and nearly drops his plate as well. It takes a few minutes for him to retrieve it, then go rinse it off in the kitchen and come back with a paper towel to clean up the masala sauce that splattered onto the floor. Cas waits until he finally sits back down. 

"You would do that?"

Dean's sure his face is completely red, but he hopes Cas thinks it's from the exertion of cleaning up after the fork. "Oh, um, sure buddy. We'll figure something out in the morning. No problem." 

*******

Dean helps Cas into the bathroom like always, and just before he pulls the door shut he clears his throat. 

"I thought I'd make us breakfast first, then we can work on getting you into the shower." Cas looks relieved as he runs a hand through his hair. "About time, too," Dean adds. "You're starting to stink up the place." 

"Well that wouldn't be the case if you'd agreed to give me a sponge bath yourself every day from the beginning," Cas says as he grabs his toothbrush, and Dean backs out of the room before the flush shows on his face.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Winchester," he mutters to himself as he mixes up some pancake batter. Naked Cas is no different than naked anybody else, certainly.

_You sure about that?_

He wouldn't feel so flustered if Benny or Charlie asked him for help if they were injured. Sure, it would be awkward, but he wouldn't be obsessively thinking about it. 

_There’s probably a good reason for that._

Besides, he's been around plenty of naked guys in a shower before, thanks to high school gym class and the baseball team.

_Nick_.

The name jumps into his brain unbidden, but before he can follow that train of thought the griddle beeps that it's finished preheating. He retrieves Cas from the bathroom, seating him at their little dinette table, then starts on his famous flapjacks. 

"Do you have to go to the store and get cast covers or something?" Cas asks as he's mopping up the last of his syrup with a forkful of pancake, but Dean shakes his head.

"No, I can wrap you up with trash bags and surgical tape and they'll work just as well. I'll help you in and then stay outside the stall so you can reach out and lean on me for balance if you need to." 

Cas levels him with an assessing look as he chews the last of his food. "You could just get in the shower with me, Dean. It would save hot water and time." He looks away and bites at his lip. "I know that sounds like a come on, but I mean it in the most clinical sense. It's not some repressed porn fantasy of mine to shower with you while I'm covered in garbage bags."

"Hey, never assume that there's no niche audience for something like that, I'm sure you can find your people on the internet if you just look hard enough." He has no idea how he's managing to joke through the sheer panic that is whiting out his brain right now, but it must be to blame for what he says next. "Besides, it makes a lot of sense. I'm sure I can handle sharing the shower with your skinny ass." _Oh my god what the fuck am I saying?_

"Don't worry, I won't get any gay on you." Cas actually uses air quotes, the dork. He's clearly unbothered by the prospect, so Dean should follow his lead.

"I’m sure I got some on me in high school. You said yourself I looked like a twink back then." 

Cas gives a hearty laugh at that, and it helps Dean relax. After he rinses off their breakfast dishes, he grabs the supplies he needs and takes them into the bathroom, then helps Cas in there and sits him on the toilet. 

"We'll do your arm first," Dean says, reaching for the smaller of the bags and the roll of tape as Cas removes his shirt. He holds his arm out as Dean covers it with a bag and then wraps tape around it at the top. He realizes he's holding his breath, and he slowly lets it out through his nose as he focuses on making sure the bag is sealed tight. "Okay, that looks good. I've got this big trash bag for your leg cast."

"Right, let me take these pants off," Cas says, shoving the band of his sweatpants down and trying to wriggle them under his butt without putting weight on his bad leg. Without thinking Dean pushes his hands away, deftly pulling the waistband underneath him and down his legs, leaving Cas in nothing but dark grey boxer briefs that he is unprepared for. Cas is fit if not muscular, and Dean is surprised to see that his torso is hairless except for a dark stripe that trails from his navel down into his briefs _and what the fuck are you staring at, Winchester_ he thinks before he swallows and tears his gaze away to fumble for the other trash bag. He tries not to let his eyes wander from his task, and it's not long before he's finished and can stand up. He leans into the stall to turn on the water so it can get hot, and realizes that he should probably get undressed himself. If he showers with his clothes on Cas will definitely know something's wrong.

_Don’t worry, your impending boner will absolutely clue him in._

He checks the water temperature, then strips off his t-shirt and sleep pants as nonchalantly as possible, holding his breath as he turns to Cas. "Come on, let's help you get in here. I think the water's good now." Cas lets himself be pulled into a standing position, then reaches in to check the temperature himself. 

"I wish we had a tub so I could have just taken a bath. Thanks for this, Dean. I know it must be really awkward...but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to this." He plucks at the waistband of his underwear, biting his lip. "Can we leave our briefs on while we shower?" he asks shyly. "It feels weird to be naked in front of you." 

"Yeah, of course, me too," he babbles before he stops embarrassing himself. He puts an arm around Cas to help him step into the stall, grateful they have a big enough shower for the both of them. "Just do whatever you need to, and reach out if you feel off balance, okay?" Cas nods, but doesn't answer as he sticks his head under the spray and moans in relief, running his unbagged hand through his hair as it gets wet. He grabs the shampoo, fumbling as he tries to open it, and Dean chastises himself for his stupid embarrassment. "Here, man, let me." He takes the bottle, squeezing a generous amount into his hand and starts lathering it into Cas's hair. He tries not to think about how close their bodies are, or how naked they are, or how wet...

"Dean," Cas sighs. "Thank you." There's so much gratitude in his voice that Dean closes his eyes for a second to collect himself.

"Don't worry, I plan to bill you later."

"I'll pay it. It's so frustrating to be hobbled like this and incapable of simple self care." That statement is enough to take Dean out of whatever headspace he was sliding into. This is his friend, who is hurt, and who needs his help. He can analyze his mental bullshit later. 

He shampoos Cas and helps him rinse, then shampoos his hair again after Cas runs his fingers through it and says it still feels dirty. "Sorry," Cas says apologetically. "That nurse Alex washed it for me the day I left the hospital, but I just haven't been able to manage it in the sink by myself with one hand."

"I should have thought about it before, Cas, I'm sorry," Dean says, helping him rinse again before working in some conditioner. He squirts body wash out into a washcloth and gets it all lathery before he hands it off.

"It's okay, Dean. It means a lot that you’re helping me now." Cas starts to scrub himself in earnest, and Dean politely turns away, though he stays within reach just in case. Eventually Cas is rinsing off, getting the conditioner out of his hair, and he smiles at Dean. "I feel like a human again. Help me get out of the way so you can wash up?" Dean swallows, then helps maneuver Cas out of the spray to brace against the wall. Dean turns away and uses the soap on himself in the most perfunctory manner possible, forcing everything he's thinking into a little box to be examined later. 

When he finishes he very carefully helps Cas out of the shower, sitting him on the toilet again and handing him a big towel before wrapping one around himself. 

"Dry off the best you can, I'm gonna get dressed and then I'll help you to your room."

"Sure, Dean," Cas says, giving him a giant smile before he escapes into the cool hallway and into his own room. His wet drawers cling to him uncomfortably, accentuating the fact that his dick took some obvious interest in recent events, and he prays that Cas didn't notice. 

He takes several deep breaths before shucking off the soaked garment and dries off quickly, pulling on sweatpants and a clean t-shirt. He takes a moment with his hand on the doorknob to collect himself and make sure he has the situation under control again. 

He doesn’t know how he’ll explain the tent in his sweatpants to Cas. Maybe that he always uses the shower for private time and had a Pavlovian reaction. Either that, or he has a hair washing kink that has heretofore gone unnoticed. Which...may actually be true, given how hard it was to keep his dick under control, and Dean has never known his dick to lie. 

_It didn't lie about Nick, either_. 

"Not going there," he mutters to himself before he heads back into the hall.

*******

It's actually another couple of weeks before Charlie and Benny are both free to come over, since Charlie has plans for Halloween weekend. In that time Dean installs a handheld shower attachment in the bathroom and buys a plastic bench that fits into the stall. 

"I thought this would be a lot less embarrassing for you," he says when he shows it to Cas. "Plus make it easier for you to shower more frequently, instead of sink surfing every day." Cas smiles and says thank you, and Dean hopes he's not as transparent as he feels.

The arm cast comes off several days before their planned game night, and Cas seems relieved to have the use of one limb back, even if the skin is withered and dry and he still has to be very careful with it.

Dean makes all the party snacks he knows as Cas as lounges on the sofa, watching a Harry Potter movie marathon on some channel. Harry is in the bathtub with Moaning Myrtle when there's a knock at the door, and Charlie bursts into the apartment with an armful of black boxes and a huge smile.

"Hey guys! Benny is right behind me," she blurts out just before the man's large frame fills the doorway. He's carrying a half case of beer under one arm and under the other he has Monopoly, of all things. Dean feels a wave of affection wash over him at the sight of them.

"I love that game!" Cas says, sitting up, then frowns, unsure. "I mean, I think I do?"

"You sure do, brother," Benny says with a grin. "Last time you wiped me out playing like a slumlord. You put two hotels on Baltic. Baltic!" 

"Sorry, it's just...I can't ever remember having played it with you. Or at all, actually. Certainly not while I was a kid, and I only remember playing Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit with Dean in the dorm."

Charlie senses his distress and puts out a hand to pat him on the shoulder. 

"It's okay, Cas. We understand. It's probably like trying to make your limbs work when they're numb. You know how to use them, but even when you do they feel weird, disconnected from your body."

"Yeah," he says after a moment, his shoulders releasing their tension. "Yeah, that sounds about right." 

"Well, I'm planning to use your memory loss against you in a bid for redemption," Benny says good-naturedly as he hands the box to Cas and heads into the kitchen to put the beer in the fridge, clapping Dean on the back after he does. 

"You'll be so busy going after Cas that I'm going to dominate the whole board while nobody is looking, and buy up all the properties Cas usually hoards."

Cas seems to relax at the way Benny and Charlie tease him about his amnesia, as though it's just a minor bump in the road instead of a cloud that casts a pall on everything about him.

They splay out on the living room floor, Cas leaning up against the couch with his injured leg extended before him, and Charlie on his right. Dean and Benny sit opposite with their backs to the TV, arranging the Monopoly board between them all and fighting over who gets to be the car. Cas takes the ship and Charlie grabs the dog, both of them laughing as Dean loses control of the car when Benny closes his fist around it and holds Dean at arm's length with one hand on his forehead, grinning devilishly all the while. Dean settles for the shoe with a pout, and claims the role of banker with a glare at everyone else.

All of them keep Cas supplied with beer and the food Dean spent all day making: cheese quesadillas, taquitos, and generous portions of guacamole that he scoops into his mouth with blue tortilla chips. The redemption Benny seeks doesn't come, as Cas manages to gain control of all the properties on either side of Jail and put a hotel on every single one.

"How do you _do_ that?" Benny says as he hands the last of his money to Castiel. "Every. Single. Time. It's uncanny." Dean makes obnoxious cash register noises as Cas neatly adds the money to his piles, the end of each stack of bills slid primly under the edge of the board on his side. Cas just looks at him levelly.

"Benny. I am in _accounting_ ," he says dryly, sending Charlie into a fit of giggles while Dean laughs and claps like a drunken seal. Benny gives him a derisive look before shoving him hard enough that he falls onto his side, still laughing. Dean rolls onto his knees and manages to stand as his laughter dies, leaning down to grab everyone's empty paper plates from the floor and take them into the kitchen. Benny sighs in defeat and gets off the floor as well.

"I'm going to help Dean clean up in the kitchen, and then we're going to walk down to the corner for more beer. You two chuckleheads" -- he points to Charlie, then Cas-- "can put all this away so I never have to look at it again."

"No problem," Charlie agrees, smirking as she starts taking hotels off the board, all belonging to Cas. "I'm going to destroy you in Cards Against Humanity next."

"We'll be back in twenty minutes," Dean says as Benny opens the door and heads into the hall. He half stumbles after Benny to the elevator, pleasantly buzzed and feeling no pain, jabbing at the button even though it's already lit up. They go to the ground floor and head out to the street, zipping up their jackets almost in unison. The air is cold but they have enough alcohol in them not to feel it too keenly. Benny playfully knocks a shoulder into him as they move down the sidewalk, their hands in their pockets. 

They get to the store with little conversation, arguing only over what type of beer they should get, then over who should pay. Benny wins after making the argument that Dean made more than enough food for all of them, and he unwillingly concedes the point.

It's as they head back to the apartment that Benny nudges him again. "How is Cas really doing?" Dean shivers, and he doesn't think it has anything to do with the cold. 

"He has nightmares, sometimes," he says lowly, but he knows from the sharp intake of breath that Benny heard him just fine. "It happened once in the hospital, and then he first night he came home I woke up to the sound of him screaming down the hall. He was thrashing about so hard I thought he'd throw himself onto the floor and get hurt even worse." He stops to lean against the side of the building, looking at the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets again. "It was awful, man. I'd never heard anything like it before."

"What'd you do?" Benny asks, coming to lean his shoulder against the wall next to Dean. 

"I woke him up, calmed him down, then..." he shuts his mouth. 

"Then what?" Dean shakes his head, pushing off from the brick and heading towards the apartment again, but Benny's big hand on his shoulder makes him pause. "You know you can tell me anything, Dean. I won't judge you, _or_ him." Dean bites his lip, then decides he's being stupid because he knows Benny better than that.

"He asked if I would stay, so I slept next to him for the rest of the night. And now every time it happens I calm him down and then go back to sleep there."

"What happens in the nightmares? Does he ever remember?"

"Not really. Bright lights and pain, mostly." He sighs, looking back the way they came. "I wish I knew how to help him, you know?"

"Dean," Benny says gently, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You're an idiot if you think you're _not_ helping him. You've always put him first, always taken care of him, even when he was perfectly capable of doing it for himself. I doubt you're doing any less now that he actually needs you. He's the most important person in your life." He gives Dean a little shake before he turns towards the apartment again, but it takes several steps for him to realize Dean isn't following. Benny turns to give him a look. "You coming?"

"What do you mean by that? That he's the most important person in my life?" 

Benny looks at him levelly for a minute, then shakes his head. "Do you think we could get back in the building before I answer that question? Because if you make me do it out here in the cold I'm gonna get real cranky." Dean shudders as though the mention of the temperature makes him feel it all at once, then follows Benny without speaking again until they're back in the lobby of his apartment building. Dean stands next to the elevator, but doesn't hit the call button just yet, and at his expectant expression Benny sighs and puts the beer on the floor between his feet. 

"Why do you look like you're about to tell me I have six months to live?"

"Because I know the two things you're really bad at are emotions and talking about them, that's why." Benny looks at the ceiling and takes a breath before he makes eye contact again. "Have you really never noticed that you act differently towards Cas than you do with _anyone_ else?" 

His first reaction is to deflect or deny, but he looks away and lets out a long exhale through his nose. "I do, yeah. I just...didn’t think any of _you_ guys did." He looks at his boots, shuffling the toe of one against the scratched linoleum of the lobby floor. "It’s been a lot harder ever since the accident, to keep it to myself.”

"And why do you do that?" 

"Because, dude." He shakes his head in frustration. “I don’t know if I can make you understand.”

"I’m listening." This is one of those rare times where Dean actually feels intimidated by the sheer size of Benny's presence, even though it's not threatening. It's impossible to avoid his gaze, asking a question that he clearly thinks he knows the answer to already, but just wants to hear out loud. 

"Okay, so. For a long time now I’ve...liked him?"

Benny gives him such a derisive look that Dean feels the tips of his ears turn red. He leans down slightly to look Dean right in the eye. "Do you _like_ like him, Dean?"

"Come on, man!" 

"Are you worried that he doesn't like you back? Maybe we could pass him a note, and he can check the appropriate box."

"You are being such a shitty friend right now."

"Brother, you are twenty-three years of age and it is the year of our Lord two-thousand and sixteen. You were supposed to have your gay panic in high school."

"It wasn't gay panic so much as gay pondering, actually, and it was a long time ago." Benny just raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms. "There were some things that happened in high school that just, well. I lost a friend because of it, and I never wanted that to happen again."

"Wanted what to happen?" 

Dean opens his mouth to explain, but the words stick in his throat and he doesn’t know how. He bites his lip.

"You know what? I really don't want to talk about it," he says, brushing past Benny to finally hit the elevator call button. Benny picks up the beer and comes to stand next to Dean as he stares at the doors as though he's willing them to open. Dean can feel all the questions he wants to ask pressing against the air between them. 

"I think you're gonna have to come to terms with whatever it is, sooner rather than later," he finally says as the bell dings and the doors slide open. Dean stalks into the empty car, leaning against the back wall after hitting the button for his floor. "Maybe when there's less alcohol in your system I can help you untangle it." 

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose. "Yeah. Maybe. It just feels shitty to focus on me when Cas is going through so much right now. He doesn't need the burden of me trying to deal with how I feel about him."

"It's going to take time for his injuries to heal, and who knows if he'll get his memories back. Focus on him now if that’s what you need to do. You can talk to me when you're ready, or Charlie, or even Sam. We've watched the two of you for years. You might be surprised at what we know."

The doors open on the correct floor and Benny strides out of the elevator car and down the hall to the apartment before Dean can respond. He almost gets shut inside the elevator again while he's lost in thought. 

*******

Patience's shoulders slump and she twists her hands together as she paces in the kitchen. "What if I ruined his life?” 

Donna flips a couple of hamburgers, then puts a slice of cheese on top of each of them. “Then you’ll have to learn to live with the consequences.”

“Like you would know anything about that,” Patience says, rolling her eyes. “You won’t even do magic.”

“For very good reason.” She glances over her shoulder before reaching to grab a couple of buns to toast on the grill. “I don’t suppose Missouri ever told you.”

“No.” Patience comes closer, leaning against the counter so she can look at Donna’s profile. “I asked her why, once, but she said it wasn’t for her to tell.” Donna smiles sadly as she deftly assembles the burgers, placing the finished plates in the window before looking at the next order in the queue.

“I was a lot like you once. I wasn’t raised around magic, didn’t know anything about it until it started to manifest in me. Mom was hoping it would skip me, I guess.” She shrugs. “Once I learned about what I could do I became too sure of myself, proud of my ability and eager to show it off.” She clears her throat but still doesn't turn around, busying herself with some bacon. "I used to wait tables, too, in a nightclub. There was a bachelorette party in there one night, and all the girls were having a great time, hooting and hollering out on the dance floor...except one.” She cracks some eggs onto the flat top, her hands constantly moving. “She was a curvy girl, very pretty, but clearly self-conscious around her friends and unsure of her body. She told me that she wished she could get back to her original weight, so I granted it." She stills for the first time, staring into the distance, remembering.

"What happened?" Patience prompts.

Donna shakes herself and goes back to the task at hand. Patience feels herself go cold, though she can't pinpoint exactly why. 

"It didn’t work out the way that I imagined, is what, and I never trusted the magic again. For you, someone was hurt, sure, and maybe there’s a small part of him that’s lost forever. But he’s young, and his body will heal, and he'll make many more years of memories that will outweigh what he's lost." 

“So what, I shouldn’t worry so much?”

Donna plates up the eggs, places them in the window, and moves to the next order. “You should use this experience to be mindful of everything you do in the future. Think of this every time you want to throw out caution and restraint.”

“Why, because it could have been worse?”

Donna looks her right in the eye. “Oh yeah. You betcha.”


	6. I set out to cut myself and here I go

**“The ones we trusted the most pushed us far away”**

\-- _Misguided Ghosts_ , Paramore

It takes Dean over a week before he can bring himself to text Sam. It only takes twelve minutes after he finally sends it -- _I need to talk to you about Cas_ \-- before his phone blows up with "I Am Not My Hair" by India.Arie, and he nearly fumbles it into the grocery cart trying to answer. 

"When the fuck did you change my ringtone?" he hisses. Sam laughs so hard on the other end that Dean takes the phone away from his ear and gives it a dirty look until he gets control of himself. 

"I have minions everywhere. I wish I could have seen your face, please tell me you are in public surrounded by hundreds of innocent bystanders."

"I'm in the cereal aisle and there are only seven other people here so your joke was wasted on them," he says to his brother as he smiles and nods at an elderly lady giving him the stink-eye from in front of the Kashi section. "Hang on." He hadn't actually selected anything yet, so he pushes the cart towards the front of the store and returns it to the carrel before going back to the car. 

"Have you found a sufficiently private space where you can talk about what an idiot you are without embarrassment?" Sam asks after Dean slams the door of the Impala shut. 

"What are you talking about?"

"Dean," Sam says with the faux patience of a teenager about to condescend to an older relative, "you never want to talk about _anything_ , so the fact that you sent me a text -- that you not only need to talk, but need to talk specifically _about Cas_ \-- tells me everything I need to know about the kind of conversation we’re about to have."

"Maybe I called to tell you his memory came back or something!"

"You would have just called, not sent me a text. So quit stalling."

Dean breathes heavily through his nose and closes his eyes to gather his thoughts for a moment. "You said a bunch of things to me the day I called to tell you Cas was missing. Do you remember?"

Sam doesn't answer immediately, and Dean's not sure if he's wracking his brain or weighing his words first. 

"You mean when I said you were his roommate and not his boyfriend?" 

"Yeah, uh, that."

"What about it?"

Dean rubs his free hand on his jeans, wondering why his palms are sweating so much in November. "I thought you were just being a jerk at the time, but you weren't, were you?"

Another pause at the other end, and Dean counts almost four full breaths before Sam answers. "No."

"It's obvious to everyone, isn't it?"

Only three breaths this time. "Yes, Dean. And yes, we talk about it behind your back, if you're wondering." 

"Shit."

"Don't be mad. It's just because we care about you."

"Who's we?"

"Charlie and Benny, of course. Kevin."

“Your roommate doesn’t even know me, Sam.”

“Which says a lot when some things are obvious even to him.”

"Jesus, really?" 

"Uncle Bobby, too."

" _What_? Fuck, Sam! Why didn't any of you say anything before now?" 

"What did you want us to say? _Do you like Cas as more than friends?_ Or maybe _we’re all willing to listen when you want to talk about your sexuality?_ Given your proclivity for deflection, what were we supposed to do, Dean? Bang on the fucking door of the closet and force you to come out?"

"I'm not hiding in the closet!" he practically shouts, and in the confined space of the car his own hypocrisy bounces off the windows like a divine judgment. "Shit. Maybe I am. I just...thought I was past that." Sam says nothing on the other end of the phone, and Dean can practically hear the gears clicking in his head. "I guess I’m not past anything if I still refuse to talk about it openly."

"Look, Dean. There's no judgment here, okay? I'm your brother, and there's nothing you can say that will make that untrue, even if I tease you about taking the scenic route to every important destination."

"You were kidding about Uncle Bobby, right?"

"Nope. The word 'idjit' gets thrown out a lot." Dean sighs. "What did you mean you thought you were past that? Is it because of Nick?"

"What?" Dean asks in genuine shock and surprise. "What do you know about Nick?"

"Come on, Dean. You guys used to be inseparable, but suddenly you stopped hanging out with him and started swapping fluids with every willing female in the county. Nothing says ‘after break-up revenge’ quite like that. Not to mention all the rumors I heard."

"We didn't break up, we weren't even dating. And how did _you_ hear anything? You weren't even in high school yet when it happened."

"Since when has anything that happened in high school ever been a secret? You know everything gets passed down for generations." Dean lets his head fall back onto the seat of the Impala and closes his eyes. "So what was it? It must have been pretty major for you to overcompensate so hard that you're in fucking Narnia."

"Sam..."

"Dean." That Sam gets right to the crux of the matter shouldn't come as any surprise, and yet it does. All the things he thinks are hidden within him, secret and safe, don't seem to be so. "What really happened with Nick?"

"It’s a long story, Sam. I haven’t even thought about it for a really long time. It's like...like I put it in a shoebox and shoved it up on the top shelf. Every so often I see it, and think about taking it down to go through what's there, but I never have."

"Did you make that into a closet metaphor on purpose or is your subconscious banging on the walls?"

"How is this helping me again?"

"Look, I really think that it’s past time for you to deal with some things, and a lot of those probably have to do with Cas whether you want to admit it or not. Why don’t you take some time to think it over, and we'll work through it when you come to Bobby's for Thanksgiving. Okay?"

"Sure, Sammy."

Dean lays the phone on the dash, crossing his arms over his chest and taking a deep breath. An entire swath of memories unfurls in his mind, like a roll of film that needs only to be held up to the light to discern the images on it, and Dean looks at them for the first time in years.

*******

Thanksgiving morning dawns rainy and cold. The drive to Bobby's house is nearly six hours, so they leave first thing in the morning, fortified with strong coffee in steaming takeout cups and half a dozen donuts sitting between them on the seat. They don't speak much for the first couple of hours, busy consuming their breakfast, and then Cas dozes off for a while. It's not until they’re halfway there that Dean finally ventures to make real conversation.

"Everything okay with you?"

Cas startles a bit, as if he'd forgotten Dean was there.

"Well, I'm kind of nervous, actually. About seeing Bobby and Sam." He fidgets a little, staring out the side window as he speaks. "I remember them, of course, from when you invited me for Christmas. I'm sure Bobby probably hasn't changed at all, but..." He takes a deep breath, staring at his hands as they twist in his lap. "I'm not sure how seeing Sam will make me feel. All I can picture is the boy I met, and I'm sure it will be jarring for me to see him as he is now. He's what, nineteen? And you said he got tall. In my mind he comes up to my shoulder."

"Shit," Dean says, smacking the steering wheel. "It never even occurred to me, Cas, I'm sorry."

"There’s nothing you could have done. I think I need to see him for it to connect, but I wish I could prepare myself."

Dean remembers how unprepared Cas had been to hold his favorite sweatshirt, marred by the indelible wear and tear of years he could no longer remember. 

"We don't have to go, if you think it will be too much. They'll understand. I'll turn around right now."

"No, no," Cas says quickly, shaking his head. "I want to see them. It might help me remember more things. I know they're important to me, even if I can't remember why."

"You're important to them, too, Cas. You're family."

Cas turns to him, then, but Dean is too busy watching the road to interpret the look on his face. 

"Yes," he says slowly. "I'm like a brother to you." Something about the way he says it is odd, like he's tasting the words and finding them unpalatable. _Or maybe that's just how they sound, because you know it’s not true._

"And Sam," he says, not knowing how else to respond. "He's been worried sick about you for weeks. I think it will do him good to see you in person. He hasn't stopped asking about you since it happened, but he doesn't want to make you uncomfortable by calling you himself, since you don’t really know him anymore." 

Cas smiles a little. "That doesn't sound much different from how I remember him."

"And how is that?"

"As a gangly fifteen year old, all limbs and eager smiles, animated in his chatter about anything that fascinated him. Respectful. Empathetic."

"I think you'll find he's pretty much the same, just taller." Cas mulls this over, looking out the side window again. They don't speak again for the rest of the trip, lost in their own thoughts. 

It's early afternoon when they finally turn into the drive that leads through Singer Salvage and up to the main house, dead center in a maze of twisted rust and steel that Dean learned to navigate when he was still a child.

"You ready?" he asks Cas, who's watching the house get closer and closer. 

"I just don't know how I'll feel when the image in my mind conflicts with what my eyes see, I suppose. It's better than staying home by myself on Thanksgiving, certainly. I probably would have drunk dialed my mother."

"Hell no, man. Friends don't let friends drunk dial the women who've wronged them, especially if it's their mother." He pulls right up to the steps, leaving just enough room to get the door of the Impala open, then puts the car into park.

"Thank you. For being a friend."

Dean stares at him for a moment. "Did you just use the _Golden Girls_ theme song on me?" 

Cas grins, and Dean shakes his head in mock disgust. "I cannot believe you've been binge-watching that without me. You're a _terrible_ friend."

He gets out of the Impala, and before he can even help Cas out of the seat the storm door up on the porch bangs open and he can practically feel Sam's presence looming behind him. 

"Hey guys, do you need help?" Sam bounds down the stairs like an eager puppy, all teeth and shaggy hair, and Dean puts a hand on his chest.

"Slow down, tiger. You're gonna freak him out, okay? The last memory he has of you is from your sophomore year, man, during your polyester tracksuit period."

"It was _nylon_ , Dean, you're such a jerk sometimes."

"I don't suppose one of you two idjits is gonna help that poor boy outta the car before he freezes to death?" Bobby says from the porch, and Dean shoves Sam back a few feet so he can open the back door and pull out the crutches that Cas can use sparingly now, smacking them against Sam's chest before he opens the passenger door. Cas turns and lets Dean pull him to his feet in one smooth move, and he blinks up at Sam in wide-eyed awe. Sam fidgets, then clears his throat.

"It's good to see you, Cas."

Dean holds his breath, but then a megawatt smile breaks out on Cas's face and suddenly he can't breathe for a completely different reason.

"You look different than I remember," Cas says. Sam shoves the crutches at Dean as he steps forward to envelop Cas in a hug, clapping him on the back before he takes a step back.

"Alright, enough of that nonsense. Help that boy in the goddamn house so I can shut this door, will ya?"

"Get the bags, Sammy," Dean says as he hands Cas one crutch and then ducks under his other arm to help him hobble slowly up the stairs onto the back porch. Bobby holds the door open as they enter into the warm kitchen, and as Sam moves past them to run the bags upstairs, Bobby stands back and crosses his arms. 

"You look like hell, kid," he says before reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. "But at least you ain't dead, and I'm glad you're here. Take off your coat and have a seat."

The nervous tension seems to have left Cas completely by the time Dean gets back from putting their coats in the hall closet. He's seated at the table with a beer, talking easily with Bobby about all the challenges he's been facing with his injuries and his memory loss, and Dean can't help but marvel at the way the gruff older man put him at ease. 

Bobby serves what has become their traditional Thanksgiving Day meal: pre-made classics from the local diner, the foil tins of stuffing and mashed potatoes and turkey warmed up in the oven and placed right on the table, with a pumpkin pie for dessert waiting on the counter. Every year Dean offers to cook, every year Bobby says he's got it under control, and every year he gets food from the same place. It's kind of endearing, honestly, and Dean's always secretly grateful at the end of the night, when the biggest part of the cleanup involves crushing foil tins into the trash can.

This night is no different than the ones they've had over the years, except that it all seems new to Cas now. He gets engrossed in discussion with Sam about how his first semester at school went, and after dinner he gets caught up talking to Bobby about _Forged in Fire._ They all head into the living room to watch a few episodes that Cas missed, because Bobby apparently has them all, and Bobby and Cas get into a heated discussion about the plausibility of making a home forge from a satellite dish and a vacuum cleaner. It warms Dean to see because it's familiar to him, even if Cas doesn't remember all the times he and Bobby have done this exact same thing in the past. It tells him that Cas himself hasn't changed, even if his perception of the world around him has been altered. 

"It's late, we should get to bed," he says. Cas looks adorable when he pouts and just the fact that he's thinking that reinforces to Dean even more that he's an idiot. "What time are you getting up in the morning, Bobby?"

"About four. Princess here, too," he said, getting a derisive scowl from Sam for the moniker. "Don't you give me that look unless 'holiday haircut' is on your shopping list for tomorrow."

"The two of you are unbelievable. Black Friday is an abomination."

"You only say that because you don't want to put in the necessary work to minimize your headache and maximize your savings." 

"What about you, Sam?" Cas asks curiously. 

"Oh, I do all my holiday shopping online. I go with Bobby in an assistance capacity only."

Cas squints at him. "Really?"

Sam shuffles, then grins sheepishly. "I also enjoy watching the unbridled chaos of utterly absurd bargain hunters, okay?"

"Yeah, I thought so," Dean says, getting up from the couch to collect everyone's empty beer bottles. "We'll meet you guys for late breakfast and you can tell us all about it."

"Is that what you want, Cas, or do you want to come with us?" Sam says, glancing at Dean.

"No way," Cas says firmly. "I don't see four in the morning unless I'm up _until_ then, Sam. You're both ridiculous. Hard pass."

Dean laughs and claps Sam on the back, helping Cas up off the couch. 

"Since I was here first I claimed the guest room, Dean. I put both your bags in our old room." Dean gives his brother a grateful look over his shoulder for knowing he'd rather be in the same room with Cas in case he has a nightmare, instead of down at the other end of the hall. "Once you get Cas situated, make sure you get your ass back down here to help me do the dishes." Dean swallows at that, because he knows there's a double meaning there.

They slowly get up the stairs and to the old bedroom that Sam and Dean used to share when they were kids. There are twin beds on opposite walls, and the decor is virtually unchanged from when Dean was in high school. They've just gotten in the door when Cas turns to him with a smile. "This is wonderful, Dean. It feels so familiar. I can't believe I was worried."

"Was it still hard, though? Seeing Sam?"

"Not as much as I thought, no. Because despite his size he's still...well, he's still Sam. Just the same as I expected." He sits down on Sam's old bed, smiling. “I feel more complete, being here with them.”

"That's good, Cas. I'm glad. You okay from here?"

"I can manage. Go help Sam."

He heads back downstairs and into the kitchen, wordlessly filling the sink with soapy water and starting on the small stack of plates and utensils. Sam finishes wiping down the table, then grabs a clean towel before he comes to stand beside him. They don’t say anything for a few minutes as he takes each plate from Dean, drying it carefully before placing it in the cupboard, but as Dean pulls the stopper from the sink Sam closes the cupboard door firmly and clears his throat.

"So, are you ready to tell me about it?"

Dean sighs, then sits down heavily at the table. Sam follows suit, leaning into his crossed arms and giving Dean his full attention.

*******

Dean had been a high school freshman when he met Nick, who'd been a year ahead of him, at baseball tryouts. They both made the junior varsity baseball team, and it didn't take long for them to become fast friends. They were inseparable at school, sat together in their shared lunch, shared a seat on the bus for every away game. Dean had never been close to anyone but Sam, never had time for anything for himself because taking care of Sam was his priority. Moving in with Bobby had changed everything for them both, and for Dean it started with Nick. 

After practice he started going to Nick's house to play video games or watch a movie, splayed across the sectional sofa in the basement den. Nick's parents were polite but harried, both with frenetic schedules that meant they were rarely home or awake when Dean was there, which became more and more frequent through that first season and then continued all through the summer. By the time school started again, with Dean a sophomore and Nick a junior, they were practically inseparable. 

Nick liked all the same movies and the same music as Dean did, but after a year or so their discussions about those things eventually gave way to more sensitive topics. Topics that Dean never had anyone else to talk about, with a much younger brother and a father who was often working and not much of a talker anyway when he’d been alive. Sometimes Dean felt that the year separating them contained an enormous amount of knowledge he'd yet to acquire, and he often marvelled at how wise Nick seemed, how cool and collected.

The summer before Dean's junior year, when Nick would be a senior, Dean sensed a shift in their relationship. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he noticed that often he and Nick drifted closer as they talked, their legs pressing together as they leaned in. Nick would focus all his attention on Dean when he talked, but occasionally his eyes would flick down to his lips and Dean's heart would race. 

He started to wonder if Nick wanted to kiss him.

Then he started hoping he would.

Months passed like that, until one night when Dean fell asleep while they were having a _Lord of the Rings_ marathon. He woke up lying on his side, head pillowed on something firm. He snuggled into it, still sleepy, then felt a hand gently carding through his hair. He knew it was Nick, but he didn't panic. It felt nice, that touch, and he made a contented sound. Nick's hand froze, and he started to sputter out an apology, but Dean sat up slowly and looked at him. 

"It's okay. It felt good." 

"It did?" Nick looked scared but hopeful, and Dean gave him a soft smile. 

"Yeah, it did."

"Do you...I mean would you...would you like to try doing some other things that feel good?" 

Dean swallowed, because he'd certainly thought about it. Dean's gaze dropped a few inches, just for a moment, and Nick took it as enough permission to lean in and brush his lips against Dean’s. Nick pulled away slightly, but Dean leaned towards him, and Nick brought their lips together again. This time he reacted, moving his lips and reaching out to grasp Nick's shirt in one hand. Dean had kissed girls a few times -- under the bleachers after a game was a popular spot -- but he'd never felt as electrified by any of those encounters, never sought to turn them into something more.

He pushed at Nick's shoulders, getting him to lie down, their lips entangled with one another as Dean curled up on his side next to him. They made out for some time, exploring each other delicately at first, then with more fervor as their kisses grew heated. Nick rolled Dean underneath him, pressing their bodies together, and Dean had pulled at Nick's shirt until he took it off so Dean could run hands across his bare skin. 

Dean had no idea how much time had passed when he finally headed home, his lips swollen with kisses that felt forbidden and right all at the same time. No fumbled caresses under the bleachers had ever turned him on as much as what he and Nick had done.

They had baseball tryouts that week, and Nick moved up to varsity. Dean tried to congratulate him after practice, but he'd been swept away by the other varsity jocks so Dean just sent him a text. He agonized over what to write for an hour, and then finally settled on something a little suggestive.

_Want me to come over and congratulate you later?_

It was hours before he finally got a reply.

_Just got home, so it's too late now, but I'll definitely take a raincheck ;-D_

He'd smiled then, thinking that they'd have the weekend. Except that varsity had Saturday morning practice, and then Nick was going to spend some time with his teammates, and though he texted Dean when he got home he was too tired to hang out.

Sunday went by without any word at all. 

The following week, Dean never seemed to be able to catch up with Nick. They didn't have any classes together but they did share a lunch period, and they'd always with each other. Monday and Tuesday he didn't see Nick, and on Wednesday Dean finally spotted him on the other side of the cafeteria. It was a table with some of Dean's least favorite people at it, the varsity team’s greatest hits of douchebaggery: shortstop Bart, catcher Gordon, and first baseman Alastair. 

Dean stared until Nick looked up, but he quickly looked away. Dean was confused and hurt, so he turned and left and didn't come to the cafeteria for the rest of the week. He texted Nick repeatedly but never got an answer, so he finally cornered him at his locker after last period one day.

"What the hell is up with you?" Dean said, trying to sound irritated but knowing the hurt was bleeding into his voice. 

"Hey, buddy," Nick said, feigning surprise that sounded more like condescension at Dean's tone. "I was gonna text you back, but I've been _really_ busy."

"Are you serious right now? We've been friends for years and suddenly you're too _busy_ to text me back?" Nick looked away, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and Dean's anger deflated. "Listen, if this is about the other night..."

"Is this boy bothering you, Nicky?" a voice said from behind him, and Dean turned to see that Nick's new lunch buddies were coming up the hall. 

"You need some help?" Bart said, and Nick shook his head, though he wouldn't look right at Dean.

"Why don't you guys mind your own business?" Dean said, half-turning towards them with a bravado he didn't feel. 

"Boy, you just can't stop panting after him like a little bitch in heat, can you?" Gordon sneered, leaning one shoulder against a locker on one side, hands in his pockets. "Your dick must be magic, Nicky, if your boy toy here can't take a hint." 

"Or has the boy's imagination just run away with him?" drawled Alastair, placing a hand against the locker behind Gordon and peering at Dean over his shoulder. "Maybe he's just got a vivid varsity ball player fantasy that he's been dying to act out. Seems like any of us should fit the bill in that case." 

“Or maybe all of us,” Bart sneered, sidling up to Dean and putting an arm over his shoulders. 

Dean shoved Bart off him and took a step away. "I'm not gay, you assholes!" A look passed over Nick's face that Dean couldn't decipher at the time, and he slammed his locker shut. "Hey," Dean tried, moving towards him, but Nick shoved him aside before turning to his new friends.

"What can I say? I've got all kinds of bitches chasing after this. Least I got you guys to help keep them all in check." He sauntered down the hall without a glance back, and his buddies trailed behind him, laughing as Nick's words seared into Dean like a brand. 

That Nick had dismissed him so quickly after what happened between them was painful, but that he'd done it after years of friendship hurt worse. That space that Nick used to fill was not so much a big hole as a spiderweb of fissures throughout his very being, once pulsing with something bright and alive, now empty and yearning. 

He thought about deleting Nick's number from his phone, but changed the contact name to "Fuck This Asshole" and blocked it instead. If Nick ever felt remorse for what happened, if he ever tried to reach out and make amends, Dean would never know. It was better that way. 

He spent more time under the bleachers with curious girls, and then time in the backseat of his dad's old Chevy Impala with adventurous ones, and by the time summer came he'd cemented his reputation as a playboy that would give any girl a charming smile and a casual tumble. Sometimes he would catch Nick looking at him, just out of the corner of his eye, but luckily for Dean he was usually in close enough proximity to a girl who didn't mind his arm snaking around her waist as he nuzzled into the crook of her neck. By the time they giggled and playfully smacked him away, Nick would be looking elsewhere. He graduated at the end of that year, and Dean never saw him again. By the time he graduated himself, Nick was just a distant memory.


	7. Don't buy the promises, cause there are no promises I keep

**“Feel the sting of tears falling on this face you've loved for years”**

**\-- __** _It Doesn’t Matter_ , Alison Krauss and Union Station

"I can't believe you never told me about this," Sam says when Dean's words finally taper off. 

"You were so young then, Sam, and it was embarrassing. Still is."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that alone. It must have hurt."

Dean gets up to get another beer out of the fridge, looking pensive as he sits back down and takes a sip. "It did at first, but then...I was so _angry_ , Sam. It pissed me off in a bunch of ways: that they were making assumptions about me, that Nick was going along with them because of his new place on the team, but most of all that I lost my friend over a bunch of homophobic dicks."

"So you set out to prove all those guys wrong by showing off just how straight you were."

"I..." he starts but his brain is running faster than his mouth is, and suddenly he sees all his experiences at the time through this new lens, and they come into focus with bright, agonizing clarity. "Shit. That's exactly what I did."

"Dean,” Sam says hesitantly. “You’re _still_ doing it. You live this whole ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ philosophy that makes you seem shallow and indifferent, which you really aren’t.” 

"No, just a coward. Locking lips with any girl that would have me so no one would say shit like that about me, as if it were a bad thing. As if it weren't _true_." 

"True?" Sam asks, hesitantly.

"Yeah, Sam," he says in a long exhale of relief. "Yeah, it's true. Of course it's true. Or half true, at least, because I’m bi. Shit. I’ve been trying to pretend otherwise for years, but you can see it, Charlie and Benny can see it."

"Anyone who sees you watch _Dr. Sexy, MD_ can see it."

Dean groans and rubs his face with his hands. "It’s just...giving in to that part of myself didn’t work out well with Nick. He was the center of my universe, and the minute I let it slip past the boundaries of friendship I lost it all.”

"Is that why you won’t act on your obvious feelings for Cas? Because you think it’ll destroy your friendship?" 

“Of course it would, Sam. It’s not worth it to me to lose him.”

“So if you’ve made that decision, why are you having such a hard time lately?”

"The shower."

"The...I'm sorry, what?"

He didn't mean to say that, but he thinks about that day, how even surrounded by moist air his mouth had gone dry as he washed Cas's hair, watching soap and rivulets of water run down his neck and chest. 

"Never mind. Let's just say that close proximity to Cas of late has made it hard for me to concentrate the way I normally do."

"Please tell me you haven't developed some weird kink like you're in a David Cronenberg movie."

"Jesus Christ, Sam, no."

"Dean, do you have actual feelings for Cas? Or do you just want to bang him?"

"I don't want to _bang_ _Cas_ , Sam." His brother snorts. "Okay, maybe I do, but it's not _just_ that." He bites his lip, considering. 

"Let me tell you what the outside assessment seems to be, factoring in this new information, and you tell me if it strikes a chord. Deal?"

"Sure," he says, relieved to have the pressure of explaining off his shoulders.

"So the first person you ever fell for was your best friend, but when you crossed that line -- which you did _together,_ though knowing you, you probably accept sole blame for that-- he freaked out and had some kind of gay panic. So not only did you lose out on a relationship with him, you lost your friend, too. Ever since then you've only allowed yourself to have intimate relations..."

"You can just say sex, Sam, you're not giving a presentation to the class."

"Fine, you've only let yourself have _coital interface_ with people that you have no emotional investment in, and never intend to. At first, maybe you only went after women because you were trying to prove something, but I think you’re still doing it now for a different reason.”

“Which is?”

“Because at some point you became best friends with another guy, and you’re emotionally invested in your relationship with _him,_ so much that he's practically your domestic partner in all but one aspect. Sound about right?"

Dean sighs. "Yeah, but I sound like a huge asshole that nobody should ever get involved with. Which is a lot of the reason I know Cas can do way better."

"You're not an asshole, Dean. You have a huge heart, but you learned to be wary about who you give it to, so you don't give it wholly to anyone. You shower all the people you care about with attention, but keep anything else at arm's length. It's just the way you've curated self-preservation. Even so, you've always been drawn to Cas, and it bleeds out in ways that you never noticed." Dean fidgets with his beer bottle, but doesn't say anything. "His friendship is so important that you don’t allow yourself to see him as anything else, when the fact of the matter is, he’s _everything_ to you."

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, then extends the fingers to rub his eyes. "I'm a fucking idiot, Sam."

"Yeah, you kind of are, but it's not a tragic flaw. What are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know," he says miserably, because he really doesn't. "I don't know if the feeling is even mutual.”

“I think the consensus of the Greek chorus is that the feeling is definitely mutual. Do you honestly not notice?”

Dean squirms in his seat, looking away from Sam’s piercing gaze. 

“When we first became friends I worried, because he was open with me about being gay, and we spent a lot of time together. I may have gone out of my way to play up the straight act. I didn’t want to lose another friend because inappropriate actions got in the way, you know?” 

“So you don’t think he had a crush on you freshman year?”

“Sam, right now that’s the only year he remembers, and he certainly doesn't act like he's got a crush on me."

Sam leans back in his chair, eyes drifting to the ceiling as he mulls it over. 

"It's possible he didn't then. Maybe just like you he developed feelings over time."

"Time that he can no longer _remember_ , Sam, so clearly that's a useless argument. Besides, he may have lost several years of his memory, but I haven't. He's never acted like we're anything but friends."

"Really? Do you think it's because that's how he really feels or because it's what he thinks _you_ feel? I've known Cas almost as long as you have, and even when I was a kid I thought he had a thing for you. I still do. The way he looks at you, sometimes, when he doesn't know anyone is watching...it's like he's looking at something he wants, but it's on the other side of the glass."

"You make him sound like a kid looking into a candy store."

"Stop downplaying this. Was there ever a time when he said something, or did something, and you shut him down? Knowing Cas, he would probably bend over backwards after that to make sure he never slipped up again. Think about it. You said you always got the feeling Nick wanted more even before anything happened, but Cas isn't Nick. He's more careful, controlled, deliberate."

Dean taps his fingers idly on the table as he thinks, rifling through his memories like an old card catalogue, closing one drawer after another in frustration until...

"Ah, fuck." Dean bangs his head on the table once, twice, three times, a memory coming into stark focus. 

They'd gone to an after finals party at one of the frat houses at the edge of campus at the end of freshman year, and he'd never seen Cas as drunk as he'd been that night, loose and free in a way he never really had been before.

"I don't want to go back home, Dean," he'd said when asked why he was drinking so much. "I don't like how I feel when I'm home. I prefer being here at school, with..." he trailed off and emptied his red plastic cup. "With all my friends. But I don't have a choice, so I'd like to get drunk and not think about it for a night." 

Dean let him go after that, holding back on his own alcohol intake to keep an eye on him, finally calling it a night when Cas started sliding down the wall that had been holding him up for half an hour. It took forever for them to stumble back to their dorm room, Dean supporting him the whole way. He'd dropped Cas onto his bed where he'd erupted into a fit of giggles, squealing with delight as Dean tried to help him at least get out of his jeans and shoes before he passed out. Finally stripped down to his boxers and tucked in, Cas had grabbed his hand. 

"I love you, Dean," he'd said with as much solemnity as a drunk man can muster. 

"Aw, thanks buddy," Dean had replied. He'd said it in jest, honestly, not giving the words any weight because Cas was drunk and being ridiculous. Just an off-the-cuff remark, one of hundreds he'd made throughout his life, never considering the impact of his words or the gravity of the moment to the other person. 

Cas had looked at him so strangely before he nodded once, dropping Dean's hand and curling up on his side facing the wall. Dean had lain awake for a while, partly listening to make sure Cas didn't get sick, partly wondering what that look had meant. He'd wanted to ask about it, but the next morning Cas had been so hungover that Dean tread lightly around him, and he confessed that he didn't even remember how they got back to the dorm. Days later they parted ways for the summer, and Dean never brought it up again. 

He thinks about how he’d downplayed it immediately at the time, like the trained response of a circus seal. He remembers well the look on Cas's face after he'd used the word ‘buddy’, unsurprised and sad all at once, like Dean had voiced a truth that Cas had only suspected before. 

He realizes now that he'd seen that exact look on someone else once. 

_I'm not gay, you assholes!_

The way Nick's face went from sadness to resolution, as if it was confirmation that any feelings he may have harbored for Dean were his alone. Given Dean's cowardly declaration, it's no wonder that Nick closed himself off and walked away. Can Dean really blame him, years later, for not wanting to out himself in front of those goons, especially when Dean had been unwilling to do the same?

"Fuck, Sam." He puts his elbows on the table and covers his face with his hands, speaking the truth into his palms, unable to look Sam in the eye.

"Fuck is right," his brother says on an exhale. "You're definitely an idiot."

Dean just nods into his hands. 

*******

By the time Dean creeps back into the room, Cas is sound asleep. Dean looks at him for a few minutes in the low light from the bathroom just down the hall, his face turned away as he lies on his back, his good leg bent at the knee and turned to the side, arms thrown above his head the way a child sleeps. The hem of the t-shirt he wears is rucked up enough to show a strip of winter-pale skin, dark hair curling down the center of his belly into the loose drawstring pants he wears. Dean swallows sharply and turns away to grab his pajamas and toiletries from his bag, heading into the bathroom to take a shower. 

He feels raw after his talk with Sam, and the warm water goes a long way to soothe his frazzled nerves. He soaps himself languorously, thoughts lingering on that strip of dark hair, moving to another time he saw it glistening with water and disappearing into a pair of wet boxers that hid nothing. He grows stiff, and for the first time allows himself the indulgence to think of Cas while he strokes himself to completion, spilling seed all over his fist with a gasp and watching it wash away in the spray.

He waits for guilt to wash over him, but it doesn't come as readily as he did. 

He finally leaves the bathroom, steam following him into the hall as he rubs his damp hair vigorously with a towel, and as he walks the few feet to his old bedroom he hears a sound he's become well attuned to: Cas in the full throes of a nightmare.

He enters the room quickly, dropping his towel as he pushes the door shut. Dean can see him moving violently, even in the dark, and he crosses the distance quickly to put a hand on his chest. 

"Cas," he says as loudly as he dares. "Wake up." Cas doesn't respond except to thrash his head back and forth on the pillow, and Dean takes him by the shoulders to give him a shake. "Cas!"

Much like the first time, Cas regains consciousness with a loud gasp of air as though he's breaking the surface of a sea that pulled him under. His torso raises up off the mattress, hands clasping at Dean's biceps as he hyperventilates. 

"Dean," he whispers brokenly when he finally catches his breath. "What happened?" 

"You're okay," Dean says quietly, twisting to sit on the edge of the bed without letting go of him. "Just another nightmare."

"It hasn't been bad like that for a while," Cas whispers dejectedly. 

"Yeah, uh, I was in the shower. I usually get to you before it goes too far."

Cas looks up at him, and Dean can the shine of his eyes in the dark. "Why are you so good to me, Dean?"

 _Because I love you,_ Dean thinks, and in that moment he realizes that it's absolutely true. 

It's in the next moment that he realizes now isn't the time to admit it.

"Because you're my best friend, Cas. You're important to me." 

Cas lets his hands fall away, and Dean does the same, sitting back a little to give him space but not getting off the bed. "Thank you, Dean."

"Do you think you'll be able to go back to sleep if I stay right here for a bit?" Cas nods, lying back down. Dean resists the urge to run a hand through his sweat-damp hair to soothe him. Instead he watches the shadow of his chest rising and falling in the dark, listening until his breath evens out again. He knows he should go and get into his own bed, but he's never left Cas to sleep alone after a nightmare, and he can't seem to make himself go the ten feet to the other side of the room. 

Instead Dean carefully stretches out beside him in the small bed, clearly not designed for two six-foot tall men. He'll go to his own in a little while, once he's sure Cas won't get pulled into the nightmare again. Right now he turns onto his side, carefully splaying his hand across Cas's chest, pressing just enough to feel the dull _da-dum, da-dum, da-dum_ of his beating heart, steady and sure and silent in the dark room. He closes his eyes, letting himself by lulled by the thrum through the thin cotton t-shirt Cas wears, the rise and fall of his chest...

The next thing he knows there's light streaming into the room through a gap in the curtain, and he doesn't remember falling asleep. He also doesn't remember changing position during the night, but somehow he has his arms around Cas, who is still asleep and curled up against him, head pillowed on Dean's bicep, one arm thrown over his waist, the other pinned between them. Cas has managed to turn onto his left side, the only other sleep position afforded him due to the bulk of his leg cast, and they're twined together in the middle of the small bed. 

Just a couple of months ago Dean would have automatically retreated upon finding himself in this position, too committed to the public face he's worn for so many years to even take it off in private. _Except_ , he thinks, _you let it slip a lot of the time you were with Cas. Let it slip, but never took it off completely. Never let him see what’s real about you. How unfair was that?_

He closes his eyes and listens to Cas breathe.

 _You're his roommate, not his boyfriend_ , Sam had said that morning months ago, and since then it's been bouncing around in his head, a steady ricochet of thought. He'd asked Sam for examples last night, and he'd ticked them off on his fingers.

"You cook for him, fuss over him when he's sick, always make sure he gets to work on time. Which"-- Sam held up a finger when he opened his mouth to argue-- "all sound like things you used to do for me, it's true. But I'm your little brother, and you always took care of me because it was your job. You never make plans without checking with him first, and always make sure that any invitations made to you include him. You treat him like your significant other in every way but one, and then you're wildly insensitive about his feelings on the matter."

"I didn't know he _had_ feelings on the matter, Sam."

"Which is why, as previously stated _multiple times_ , you are an idiot."

He knows it for sure now, waking up with Cas in his arms like he belongs there, warm and solid and so natural that he hates himself a little. He's always let the women he brought home spend the night, and he thought it made him a gentleman, but he'd never woken up curled around them like this. Hardly gave them another thought after he'd bid them goodbye, never made arrangements to know them better or make any future plans because everything he ever wanted to come home to was already there, waiting in the background for the day Dean would wake up and see him.

Now Dean is awake while Cas still sleeps, a cruel parallel of his life right now. He knows he shouldn't, but he allows himself a bit of indulgence. He inclines his head just enough to bury his lips in Cas's hair, feeling the warmth radiating from his scalp as he lets his fingers stroke the skin just beneath the hem of his t-shirt. 

_What would it be like to wake up next to him like this every morning?_

He yanks his hand back, clenching it into a fist. He has no right to touch Cas like that, just because he thinks he may never get another chance. 

He shifts one leg backwards, feeling for the edge of the mattress with his foot, preparing to slither out of the sleeping man’s embrace before he wakes. He starts to wiggle backwards as slowly as he can when suddenly Cas shifts and cranes his head back to look at Dean, a question in his eyes. 

"Cas," Dean whispers, leaning towards him.

"What are you doing?" Cas says sharply, and Dean is so startled he pulls back far enough to fall off the bed with a thud. 

"Ow," he says, laying on his back on the floor. Cas grasps the edge of the mattress and drags himself to the edge to peer down at Dean.

"Are you okay?" he says with genuine concern. "I'm sorry, you startled me.”

"We share your bed every time you have a nightmare," Dean says, trying to cover his embarrassment with petulance. He sits up, rubbing the ass cheek that broke his fall. 

"I know, but..." Cas looks away. "You startled me." 

"Sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep there." He tenses down on the cold floor, hoping for a moment that Cas will call bullshit. He'll ask Dean why he whispered his name, suggest they have some things to talk about, ask him to come back to bed -- but Cas does none of those things and somehow that's worse. 

"Sure. Sorry you fell on your butt," he says, sitting up and maneuvering his cast off the bed without sparing another glance at Dean, who picks himself physically off the floor but leaves his pride behind. The glib dismissal tells him all he needs to know about how receptive Cas would be to a change in their relationship. Whatever feelings Cas may have had for Dean were erased with his memory. 

*******

Every year Missouri closes the Wayward Diner on Thanksgiving, and has a feast at her house for her own version of family, each of them a lost or fractured soul who never had anything like it until they met Missouri.

Patience, her granddaughter, is the only person related to Missouri by blood, but she feels the most like a stranger in the group that’s gathered there. All of them have such stories to tell, but the only one Patience can’t stop thinking about is what Donna told her.

It nags at her all night, intruding on her thoughts as they sit around Missouri’s table, passing each other potatoes and turkey. She steals glances at Donna now and then, watching her interact with Jody, her unbridled laugh infectious. She doesn’t seem like a person who suffered a tragedy, but her refusal to do magic ever again means there’s something there. 

_I wish I_...always a recipe for disaster, her gran says, when the wish is for self-interest.

_I wish I could go back to the days before I fell hopelessly in love with my roommate._

_I wish I could get back to my original weight._

_Original weight_. 

Surely the object of Donna’s spell started losing weight, probably a little at a time but steadily. How thrilled it must have made her to get closer and closer to a number she held as ideal.

But how would magic know what number, framed in this woman's mind, was her original weight? Magic, fickle and mistrusting of those who would use it for ill, heard the selfish nature of the wish, and set that woman on a path to _exactly_ what she asked for. 

So the woman must have lost weight, and gotten to the number she wanted, the three digits that made her happy.

Then the number kept getting even lower. What a pleasant and unexpected surprise it would have been, to keep losing weight no matter what you eat. Everyone’s dream, really, she thinks as she looks at the overabundance on Missouri’s table.

Until it kept going, to a place that was alarming. 

And went further, until it was dangerous.

And Patience knows, with a clarity she hopes to never have again in this life, exactly why Donna came to work for Missouri. Why she’d been shunned from her family, lost and afraid and needing guidance. But most importantly -- why she never does magic anymore. 

Original weight.

_Birth weight._

Later that night, she sneaks up behind Donna as she does dishes in the kitchen, wrapping her arms around her waist and holding her tight.

“I’ll never be careless again. I promise.”

“Sure you will, kiddo,” Donna says, leaning her head back to rest on Patience’s shoulder for a second before plunging her hands back into the soapy dishwater. “No one is ever perfect all the time. The most you can hope for is to be conscious of what you do, to avoid carelessness. Make sense?”

“Yeah,” Patience says, grabbing a towel to start drying the plates in the racks. She stands next to Donna in silence for a few minutes, letting the idle rhythm of her hands soothe her to calm. “Why won’t you do magic anymore? Is it because you don’t trust yourself? Missouri could help you with that.”

“Oh, she sure has,” Donna replies. “I was in a bad place when I came to her, and she helped build me back up. Trained me, gave me confidence. It’s just…” she stops washing, the muscle in her jaw clenching as Patience waits for her to continue. “She died, you know. That girl.”

“I thought as much.”

Donna looks down at her wrists, her hands hidden below the suds, the wash water hot enough that small tendrils of steam rise from the water. 

“Normal people go to jail when they’ve killed someone.”

“It was an accident,” Patience whispers, and Donna nods her head. 

“Involuntary manslaughter is still a punishable offense. A couple of years after I came to Missouri, I had a crisis of conscience, you could say.” She pulls her hands from the water, plucking the towel from Patience’s grasp. “I love doing magic, just as much as any of us do. But I don’t deserve to. That’s my penance, you see.” Donna playfully punches her in the arm, like they’ve been joking around for the last ten minutes. “Make sure you don’t get to a place where you need to do any.” 

She leaves Patience alone in the kitchen, letting the counter hold her up.


	8. Give me reason, but don't give me choice

**“Definitions blur and we're something else, maybe destined to be”**

\-- _Tolstoy_ , Bob Hillman

Things have been slightly awkward between them since Thanksgiving, and Dean doesn't know what to do about the tension. It's clear that Cas is aware of something in the air, some shift in their relationship, but he never acknowledges it. He spent most of the holiday weekend talking to Bobby or Sam, not necessarily avoiding Dean so much as not seeking him out. Dean wasn't sure, until they returned to their own apartment, if Cas was purposefully putting space between them. He wasn't sure until the end of the night when Cas went to bed and firmly shut his door behind him, the click of the latch a boundary snapping into place. He'd been used to Cas doing that before the accident, before his injuries and his nightmares made him vulnerable. Now it hurts him to see, the physical reminder that Cas doesn't want his help anymore. The real life representation of where the lines should have been drawn around their friendship long ago. 

He wonders if Cas will start looking for a place of his own when the holidays are over. _It's no more than you deserve_ , he thinks to himself. _And it’s probably for the best._

It's the Tuesday before Christmas when Cas finally gets his leg cast off. Despite the awkward tension that's built between them for the last few weeks, Cas has a bright smile on his face. 

"Can we go to the mall?" he asks eagerly, practically bouncing in his seat. "It's a weekday and it won't be really crowded."

"Don't you think that will be a lot of walking for you? Dr. Barnes said not to overdo it too soon."

"I’ll let you know when I get tired, and then we can go to the diner for pie. Please?"

Dean groans inwardly, but this isn't about him. "You want to do your Christmas shopping, don't you?"

"Dean, I'm still technically an invalid, it would be mean for you to deny my wishes." He taps his temple with a finger, then crosses his arms and pouts, and Dean can't help but laugh.

"You got me there."

"You can do your Christmas shopping too!"

"I have until Christmas Eve!"

"That's in _four days_ ,you procrastinator."

They spend a couple of hours in the mall, and Cas moves carefully and slowly. Dean doesn't care though, determinedly following him into every single store, smiling at how delighted he is with all the different holiday displays. He's glad they came here, because watching Cas enjoy the winter wonderland of the downtown mall is a magical thing to see. 

Some of the shops are crowded despite the time of day, but of course those are the places Cas wants to spend the most time in. Dean indulges him with a smile and glares at anyone who looks like they might ask them to move out of the way. It takes Cas forty-five minutes in a narrow aisle of the bookstore to decide on _Latin for Dummies_ for Sam (because "most legal terms are in Latin, Dean, it will give him an edge over all the other law students") and something called _Moondoor Memories_ for Charlie. He's at a loss for what to get Benny, though. They stop at the food court so Cas can rest for a little bit, and he frets about his options.

"I'll feel terrible if I don't get him something he'll like, Dean. Are you sure you don't have any suggestions?"

"Not a clue. I always get him a beer."

"I can't get him _beer_ , Dean, it's too impersonal for me."

"He knows you have amnesia, Cas, I think he'll let it pass."

"Not when I have great gifts for Charlie and Sam!" His distress is actually kind of cute, and Dean hates himself a little bit more for his lack of self-awareness.

"I'm thinking leather, just a chest harness maybe, something that speaks to his inner bear daddy." 

"I am _not_ buying sex outfits out of your fantasies for our friends, Dean!"

They finally compromise, settling on a flat cap in a soft brown suede for Benny, which Dean gives his seal of approval. 

"Now all I have left is Bobby, and we just need to stop at the liquor store for that."

"Wait, beer wasn't good enough a gift for Benny but it's okay for Bobby?" Dean is carrying the bags full of gifts through the parking lot with Cas beside him, walking slowly.

"I'm not getting him beer, Dean."

"But you want to go to the liquor store for his gift and that's where the beer lives."

"It's also where the Glenlivet lives."

"I withdraw my argument."

They pack everything into the car, and Cas lets out a relieved sigh as he sinks into the passenger seat. 

"Can we go to the bar instead of the diner?” Cas asks. “I bet it will feel as familiar to me as Wayward does, and I’m not worried about going there now that I won’t have to maneuver around people with a cast on.”

The last couple of hours have been great for them, free of the tension he’s felt since they came back from Bobby’s house, but Dean dreads taking Cas to the bar. Every time Cas finds something that feels familiar to him, another connection that grounds him even without his memories, is like a knife to Dean’s chest. He desperately wants to ask: _do you remember how you felt about me?_ _Is any of that still in there?_

He wants to. But he doesn’t.

“Sure, Cas,” he says, letting the Impala’s engine wash over his dread.

*******

It’s already crowded for a weeknight and the parking lot is nearly full, but Dean manages to find a space way in the back. He hasn’t been here at all since Cas had his accident, hasn’t even thought about it really, too focused on getting home every day to be with Cas.

 _Probably should have focused on doing that before, and then none of this would have happened_.

Cas doesn’t notice his dark mood, too eager to get inside. The booths are all full, and Dean is worried about Cas being on his feet for too long, but Cas heads to the bar with purpose and Dean trails behind. They lean against the polished wood surface and order their drinks as Cas looks around with interest.

“Recognize anything?” Dean asks, even though he doesn’t want to know. Cas looks pensive, studying the faces of the people behind the bar and the waitresses milling about until their beers arrive.

“It’s odd,” he says, turning to wrap his hands around his glass. “It does feel familiar to me, but not in the same way.”

“What do you mean?”

Cas takes a sip of his beer, then turns the glass in his hands as he thinks. “Other things, like our apartment, or the diner, they feel comfortable, like places that make me happy. I definitely feel like I’ve been here but…” He looks around the room again. “I don’t feel like I enjoyed it.” 

Dean cringes. It would mean that what Sam believes is true, and that Cas hated coming here because of how many times he had to watch Dean leave him behind to chase after something else. Which Dean only did because he wouldn’t allow himself to act out on his attraction to Cas. What that must have felt like, to see the person you care about fawning over another person, while you had to watch. 

He’s about to find out.

"Castiel?" says a voice from behind Dean, and though it sounds familiar it doesn't register until he turns around to see the face attached to it.

"Hey, Inias," he says, drawing the man's attention away from Cas.

"Dean!" He looks genuinely surprised and pleased as he comes over to them, holding out a hand. Dean shakes it without thinking, while his brain struggles for something to say. "It's been a while. You both look well." He turns to give Cas a beatific smile, and Dean wants to shrink into himself. "I have to say, seeing the two of you here like this really puts me at ease. I felt awful for a long time about what happened, Castiel, but it looks like I made the right call."

Cas looks up at Inias with a confused but polite smile on his face, and says, "I'm sorry, I don’t recognize you. What’s your name?"

Dean feels like everything is in slow-motion and he's lost the ability to speak. Inias' smile crumples into hurt, and he takes a step back. Dean turns towards him, but he feels like his limbs are moving through molasses.

"I can take a hint, but you don't need to be cruel, Castiel," he says before he turns away, shoving his way into the throng of people. 

"Dean, what…”

"Wait here, Cas, please," he says, trying to keep his eyes on the navy peacoat a dozen feet in front of him and not knock anyone over. Inias is moving at a good clip despite the number of people in the bar, and Dean follows him as he ducks into the hall leading to the bathrooms. Dean turns into it and nearly runs into him. Inias has stopped just around the corner and is leaning against the wall, head in his hands as he takes ragged breaths.

"Inias, wait, it's not what you think." The man looks up, startled, and Dean reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder before he can bolt. "Let me explain, please."

"You don't have to. I know he was really hurt when I dumped him, but I thought since you two are finally together he would have realized I did the right thing," Inias says, batting Dean's hand away.

"You don't understand, he...wait, what did you say? You think we're together?"

"Dean, I could tell from across the room." Inias peers at his face. "Oh god, you aren't still in the closet and keeping your relationship quiet are you?" His face turns angry, and he pokes at Dean's chest. "He deserves better than that, you bastard. If you care about him half as much as he does for you, you'll knock that shit off. Cas is no one’s dirty secret!" He turns to storm off, and Dean puts up his hands. 

"Wait, wait, please," he says. Inias crosses his arms, glaring at Dean but standing his ground. "We aren't a couple, I swear. If we were I would make sure everybody knew, trust me. He didn't mean to hurt your feelings, either. He just really doesn't know you right now."

Inias drops his arms, looking completely baffled. "I'm confused."

"Yeah, well, imagine how he feels, pal," Dean says, getting a little defensive. "He got hit by a car a couple of months ago, got really banged up and lost several years of his memory."

"Oh my god," Inias says, his face practically turning green. "I had no idea."

"You couldn't have known." Dean feels sorry for him now. "Look, come back and talk to him for a bit. He’s probably over there freaking out because he doesn’t know you, but he knows he upset you somehow." 

Inias looks away, peering into the distance, considering. “I still think you don’t deserve him,” he finally says, and when he turns back to Dean his eyes are hard.

“Yeah, well, you’re not getting any argument from me.”

Inias looks Dean up and down, considering. “He really has amnesia?” 

“Talk to him and see.”

Inias takes a deep breath. “Okay."

They make their way back through the crowd. Cas is right where they left him, his head in his hands, elbows on the bar. Dean taps him on the shoulder, and Cas's head pops up. Seeing Inias, his face crumples into shame.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, you see I...I'm..."

"It's alright, Castiel," Inias says, putting a reassuring hand on Cas's shoulder. "Dean explained your circumstances. I understand that you don't remember me." He pulls his hand away, checking his easy familiarity. "My name is Inias. We knew each other in college."

"I'm Castiel," he says automatically, then shakes his head. "Which clearly you know already." 

Inias smiles, and his shoulders relax a bit. "You don't seem much different than I remember." 

Cas sits up straight, peering at him. "You seem familiar to me, too," he says, smiling. He tilts his head. “Did we used to date?"

Inias blushes, and Dean’s heart clenches. "Yes, yes we did. For a time." 

"Why'd we break up?" Cas asks, tilting his head the way he does when he can't puzzle something out. 

Inias glances at Dean, and he takes the hint. 

"Why don’t I leave the two of you alone to talk?" Dean directs this question to Cas, who nods eagerly, and Dean feels like he's swallowed a bitter pill as he walks away.

Cas had never told Dean exactly why they’d broken up, but Dean had been secretly relieved when they did. He thought he felt that way because Inias wasn’t right for Cas, although now he knows it's because he felt threatened -- because in his heart he wanted Cas for himself, even if he wouldn’t act on it. Inias had actually been perfect for Cas, a much better match for him than Dean could ever be. He'd tried, just once, to ask Cas why they broke up, but he'd gone white as a sheet and excused himself to his bedroom for the rest of the night, and Dean never asked again. Whatever Inias had done or said had hurt Cas badly enough that he didn't want to share, but he wouldn’t stand for it if Dean said anything bad about him. 

Dean takes his beer and moves to the far side of the bar, glumly staring in their direction while he watches them talk, trying to assess how the conversation is going. 

"Hey there, stranger," a warm voice says into his ear, and he turns to a face that looks familiar, though it takes him a moment to place it.

"Oh, hey. Lisa, right?" 

"You remember. I'm surprised. You were a little distracted that morning." 

"Yeah," he says, staring into what's left of his beer. "I'm sorry about that. How are you?"

"A damn sight better than you are, I think. What's going on?"

"I don't know what you mean," he says, looking back towards the bar. Cas and Inias are leaning into each other, their faces only inches apart as they converse, and he turns back to Lisa so he doesn't have to see. 

"Uh-huh," she says, giving him a calculating look. "Whatever happened with your roommate?"

"He'd been in an accident, actually, so I was right to be worried. He's okay now, though, for the most part." She glances across the bar, and it takes everything Dean has not to follow her gaze. 

"So you're playing wingman for a change?" She leans against the wall and crosses her arms. "Or is there another reason that you're over here with the same look on your face that he had the night we hooked up?"

_How long have you guys been roommates?_

_Long enough that I know he wouldn't go home with someone he didn't know._

_He probably doesn’t do casual hook ups because he's already got his heart set on someone else._

"What look?" he whispers, though he knows already. 

"Like you're seeing the thing you want most in the world, but it's out of your reach." 

He turns his back to the wall and hangs his head. 

"I'm such an idiot. I messed up."

"Hey," she says, moving to rub circles into his arm, and it's far more comforting than he deserves. "Maybe you can still fix it. Don't lose hope."

He laughs without real humor. Cas had hope, probably for years, and Dean never gave him any reason to. He just took for granted that Cas was happy with the role he had in Dean's life, that he never asked for more because he was content, that he didn't date a lot of people because he was shy. He wonders how many mornings Cas woke up, praying that today was the day Dean would finally look at him and _see_ , only to go to bed that night with his hopes crushed once again. 

Dean thinks about that and hates himself anew, because he's only been doing it for a couple of months and it's like being trapped at the bottom of the ocean: fathoms upon fathoms of pressure, cut off from the light. Dean hadn’t let himself look, but he had _always_ seen, and now Cas no longer does. The reset button on Cas's life has been pressed, and he's on the other side of the bar with someone else who wasn't afraid to show how much he cared about him. 

He shakes his head. There is no fixing this. 

"I have to go," he says, pushing off the wall. His voice is thick with unshed tears, and wouldn't that be something if macho Dean Winchester started blubbering in the middle of the bar and made a spectacle of himself. "Merry Christmas, Lisa," he mutters as he pushes his way through the other patrons. He just needs to hold it together to let Cas know he’s leaving, and make sure he takes a car home. Maybe Inias will offer to drive him. Maybe the two of them will get back together, and that would be just what Dean deserves. If Cas is going to start fresh, it should be with someone who never denied his feelings for him.

It’s even more crowded now than it was when they arrived, and he’s just about to reach out and tap Cas on the shoulder when he hears their conversation, voices raised to counteract the din in the bar.

“I just knew there would never be a place for me in your life with Dean there.”

“That’s just...that’s not possible, Inias.”

Dean turns, shoving his way through the crowd, ignoring the shouts of people around him, not caring that he shouldn’t leave Cas alone again, just desperate to get out into the fresh air where his failure isn’t so palpable. It’s clear to him that Inias had seen through him the whole time, had known what Dean wouldn’t act on, probably dreaded the day that he would. Only Inias didn’t know what Sam has stated several times: Dean is an idiot. 

*******

He leaves the bar and makes his way through the lot, only to find that someone has parked behind the Impala, and there’s no way for him to get out. 

“Fucking great,” he says. He hunches into his coat against the cold and turns towards home. Five minutes into the walk, the crisp air changes, and for the first time this year white flakes start to fall.

He walks through the snowy night, his head a jumble of thoughts and feelings. It's colder than he realized, and he’s cursing his own stupidity after a few blocks, but by then he’s close to the Wayward Diner and pops in there to warm up. 

It’s cozy inside, and as he brushes at his shoulders he can feel the flakes already melting into the material of his jacket. He looks around, and though there aren’t a lot of people there he doesn’t want to wait to be seated in a booth. The thought of it sitting there alone, thinking about Cas, hurts. He takes a stool at the empty counter instead, slumping on it until a waitress comes over to stand in front of him.

“Hey Missouri,” he says, sitting up straight as he recognizes her. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here by yourself before,” she says, turning his cup upright and reaching for the full pot of coffee behind her. “And certainly not this late at night. It’s usually your roommate who hangs out here by himself at this hour.”

“He does?”

“Well,” she says, pouring deftly without spilling a drop. “He hasn’t since he had that unfortunate accident, of course. In fact,” she says, putting the coffee away, then leaning against the counter on one elbow, conversationally, “he was here that night before he got hurt, if I recall.”

“Did he do that a lot?” 

“A couple of times a month, at least. Always late at night, and he’d stay a few hours before he left.”

“Why?” 

Missouri gives him the raised eyebrow. “Because something was happening at home that he didn’t want to be privy to, most likely.”

“Shit,” Dean says, pushing the cup of coffee away to rub his face in his hands. 

“Figured it out finally, have you?” 

“That I’m an asshole? Yeah, I figured it out.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Misguided, surely, but I don’t think you’ve hurt anyone intentionally.”

“They’re still hurt though, intention or not, and I don’t know how to fix it.” 

“Yes,” she says, glancing back towards the kitchen. “Not everything can be fixed, unfortunately.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he sighs, sipping his coffee. “There’s no changing the past, and I can only focus on the future.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

Dean’s been thinking about it for weeks, agonizing over finding a solution, but he realizes now that it’s been so difficult because he’s only been focused on getting the outcome that benefits _him_.

Maybe instead he needs to think about the outcome that’s best for _Cas._

Even if it doesn’t include Dean.

_I still think you don’t deserve him._

_Yeah, well, you’re not getting any argument from me._

“I think I need to stop being selfish,” he says slowly, feeling out the words. “You should want the best for the people you love, even if that means you can’t be part of it, right?” He looks at Missouri, who nods. “My greatest wish is for Cas to be happy. To have the world be kind to him, to have the love of someone who cherishes him. That’s all I want.”

She looks at him thoughtfully, but he doesn’t drop his gaze. She finally smiles a bit and pats him on the hand, which tingles as she pulls away. 

“Sometimes things work out in ways you don’t expect,” she says before going into the kitchen. Dean sips at his coffee, musing over what he has to do now. He hid his feelings for such a long time, and now he has to go back to hiding them. It’s for the best. He had his chance, years of them, truly, and he didn’t take them. Cas deserves better.

He finishes his drink before Missouri comes back, and leaves a five dollar bill on the counter before he heads back out into the snowy night, filled with resolve and sorrow.

*******

Dean walks quickly, shivering in the cold, pausing only when he passes the spot where Cas had his accident. He closes his eyes for a moment, imagining the scene then: Cas walking home in the dark feeling dejected and hopeless, lost in his thoughts, just as Dean is now. 

“He deserves better,” he says aloud, the clarity of it ringing off the brick of the buildings, and with strengthened resolve Dean walks the rest of the way home. He rides the elevator and wonders how Cas and Inias are progressing back at the bar, knowing he should at least send a text before he crawls into bed and hides for the next several days. 

He enters the dark apartment, not bothering to turn on the light, and leans against the door as he pulls out his phone. 

_Had to leave. Impala was blocked into the lot. Please get a car home this time, or have Inias drive you._

It hurts, typing that name out. Relinquishing Cas to his care. He hits send before he can think about it and pushes off the door to trudge to his room. 

He hears the text alert on Cas’s phone, his eyes drawn to the sound, and realizes it’s coming from the couch. He thinks that Cas must have left his phone here, dropped it into the cushions somewhere. Dean fumbles behind him to flick on the light, illuminating the room, and turns to find Cas sitting on the sofa, staring right at him.

“Hey,” Dean says, startled. “When did you get here?”

“Why did you leave?” 

“I’m sorry,” Dean says, looking away. “I know you’re probably sick of me doing that, but it looked like you guys had a lot to talk about and I didn’t want to intrude.” He hopes he looks as ashamed as he feels, but more than anything he hopes he can get into his room before Cas tries to confront him about anything Inias said. He’s too raw for this conversation right now. “Sorry I just...I don’t feel well, so could we talk about it tomorrow?” He doesn’t get far, not even to the kitchen, before Cas speaks again.

“Inias said he broke up with me because he knew I’d never love him.”

Dean freezes, closing his eyes. “That’s ridiculous,” he croaks out, but doesn’t turn. 

“Is it?” Cas says, and Dean hopes he can’t hear the hitch in his breath. 

“What?” He finally turns to look at Cas, who stands up and starts pacing in front of the couch.

“You don’t know how frustrating it’s been all this time, feeling like I’m in the dark about my own life. Knowing there’s something more, something I’m missing, and not being able to articulate it. And there’s only one person I want to talk to about it, and I can’t, because everything I’m questioning is about _that person_.” 

He twists his hands together, stopping to turn towards Dean, but not look at him.

“When I woke up in the hospital, from the way you were acting, I thought...for a little while there I wondered if we were a couple. Truth be told, I was a little uncomfortable with the idea. And then you said you’d left me at the bar because you hooked up with some girl. It made sense that you would do that, of course it did.” He does look at Dean finally, his blue eyes wide, and Dean feels lost. “Except that it _didn’t_.”

“Cas, I’m not sure I understand.”

“I wanted to ask Charlie, or Benny, or even Sam: how did I survive all these years being friends with Dean Winchester without falling hopelessly in love with him? Because that would be bad, it would ruin our friendship.” He runs out of steam, breathing hard, eyes meeting Dean’s again. “Inias says that he broke up with me because he knew I’d never be able to love him. Because he thought I was already in love with you.”

Dean clears his throat and looks away. “I hope you made him see reason.”

“Reason,” Cas says, the word rolling off his tongue. “He said he thought we were a couple when he saw us together. That you told him we weren’t, but you sounded like you wished we were.”

“Cas,” Dean says. “Whatever I said to Inias, whatever he thinks about your relationship before, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to get in the way, okay?” 

“Get in the way?” Cas asks, coming closer. 

“Cas, I...I care about you. I always have. Maybe not always the way I should but, but I know things aren’t the same for you now. I know I...I messed up.” He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “I just want you to be happy, and I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Cas says, and when Dean opens his eyes he’s close, so very close. 

“That I ruined things for you. With Inias. With anyone. You deserve better.”

“Do I?”

“Cas…”

“I don’t know if I really was in love with you before,” Cas says, putting a hand on Dean’s chest. “But I know I’m in love with you now. Or again. Whichever turns out to be true.”

Dean stands frozen, blinking, trying to process everything Cas just said, and Cas leans up to brush their lips together. The touch is electric, its potency unhindered by its brevity, and Dean’s lips tingle as he catches his breath in surprise. He brings his hands up to thread them in Cas’s hair, determined to kiss him with deliberation...

...when Cas pulls back suddenly with a gasp, and Dean reflexively releases him, his hands trembling as they fall to his sides.

“What was that?” Cas says, the fingers of one hand pressing against his lips, his eyes darting back and forth, as though he’s in a waking dream. Dean holds his breath, afraid to shatter the moment, unwilling to push. He watches as Cas takes a step back, hands moving to rub at his temples as he clenches his eyes shut.

Dean has never before catalogued all the ambient sounds of a room before, but he takes in the subsonic clicking of the heating unit, the low buzz of electricity in the walls, the distant thrum of a car passing on the street outside, until Cas clasps his hands together before him and raises his head.

“I remember,” he says, looking up at Dean and finally opening his eyes, wide and bright in the dim room. “Dean. I remember _everything_.” He starts to smile before something inscrutable crosses his face, and it crumples as he takes a step backward. “Oh god. I remember everything. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I…”

“Cas? What’s wrong?” Dean reaches out, but Cas shrinks away, backing towards his bedroom.

“I’m sorry, Dean, please, forget I said anything I just...I know I’m like a brother to you and I just...I’m still so confused after the accident.”

“Fuck,” Dean says, hanging his head. “Cas, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“I know I do,” Cas says, his voice shaking. “I misunderstood, because I didn’t remember. I remember now, and I...just give me some time to get my bearings and then everything can go back to the way it was before, I promise.”

“I don’t want to go back to the way it was before.”

“Okay,” Cas says, backing away towards the bedroom. “If you could just...give me some time. I can find another place to live.”

“No, Cas.” He crosses the distance between them, taking Cas by the shoulders. “I want you to stay. With me.”

Cas shakes his head, refusing to meet Dean’s eyes. “Maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t think I can continue living like this, Dean, you have to know I…” He pushes away, putting several feet between them before he finally meets Dean’s gaze. “These past few weeks I’ve been filled with turmoil, because I realized the way I felt about you wasn’t just friendly. I’ve tried to keep my distance, because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I thought it would pass, that I was just confused.” He takes a breath so deep that Dean’s eyes are drawn to the line of his shoulders as they move. “I kept wondering how I managed to be friends with you for so long and not fall for you.” He laughs, crossing his arms and shaking his head as he stares down at his feet instead. “Everything is so clear to me now, like that fog in my head these past few months has just blown away -- and now I see that I never managed that _at all_. I’ve been lying to you for years.” His hands fall to his sides in defeat. “I’ve been lying to myself, thinking that with enough time I’ll get over you. The same thing I thought back in freshman year, and here I am five years later still as hopeless as I was then. I can’t make the same mistake again.”

“Cas, it’s not a mistake.”

“Is that so? When I came out to my best friend in high school, the first thing he said was _don’t ever fall for a straight boy._ He considered it the cardinal rule, and I broke it.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Have you been listening to anything I’ve said?” Cas said, the level of his voice rising in exasperation.

“Cas, you’re missing a crucial piece of information.”

“I’ve only had my memory back for fifteen minutes but it feels pretty comprehensive to me.”

“Except for the part where I never told you that I’m bi.”

“What?” Cas says after a long moment, chest heaving, and Dean takes in the shock on his face before he sinks heavily onto the couch, his hands dangling between his knees. 

“I knew back in high school. Six, almost seven years ago now. It feels like so much longer, though, when I think back to the person I was then: insecure, unsure, emotional. Like it was someone else’s life entirely, especially when I think about things I did that I wish I hadn’t.”

“Like what?” Cas hasn’t moved, but Dean can hear the curious lilt in his voice, and he swallows. _You’ve already told Sam. You can do this._

“There was a guy on the baseball team with me. Nick. Got to be friends with him my freshman year, and we got really close. Inseparable. I mean, we did everything together. He was the first person besides Sam that I shared so much with.” He rubs his hands on his thighs, his palms sweaty from nerves. “Eventually, I started to wonder if we were more than friends. It was all I thought about, but I didn’t know how to talk about it. Sometimes he would look at me, or touch me a certain way, and we would both freeze, waiting for the other one to make a move. Dancing around the issue the way nervous kids who are unsure of themselves do. One night, we finally crossed the line and it was…” He falls back against the couch, tilting his head against the cushions to stare at the ceiling. “It was perfect. The way things only are when you’re seventeen, you know? Perfect for a brief moment of time.”

“And then?”

“And then...we fucked it all up.”

He stops to gather his thoughts, and Cas finally moves to sit on the opposite end of the couch, facing front with his hands on his knees like he’s at a job interview. “What happened?”

“He made the varsity team, and a group of them were homophobic assholes. He must have been scared for them to find out about what had happened between us, because they probably would have made it hell for him on the team. Nobody was ‘out’ in high school in Kansas, not in our town.”

Cas sighs, his shoulders sagging. “I can understand that.”

“He pulled away from me at first, then started ghosting me entirely, and that _hurt_.” He closes his eyes, cringing at the memory of all those text messages sent, sparsely answered and then completely ignored. “But now I think he was spooked. One day I tried to corner him, get him to talk to me, and a few of those guys interrupted and started teasing about my ‘obsession’ with him. I loudly protested that I wasn’t gay and, well, I’m sure he took that as confirmation that what had happened between us was a fluke. That I didn’t have any real feelings for him. He took their side and walked away from me. I was too busy thinking about how he hurt me to consider that maybe I’d done the same to him.” He sits up, rubbing his face with his hands. “I overcompensated by dating every available girl in a five mile radius. It was like I was trying to prove how straight I was, all while rubbing in how little he meant to me. So many of my firsts belonged to him, and I would never get them back, so I got revenge instead. It’s not just a scorned woman who feels the fury of hell, I suppose.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Eventually it just became routine. I couldn’t look at other guys without thinking of him, so I focused on dating women and buried that other part of me with his memory.”

“And you never let any of them get close to you, because you didn’t want to fall for someone who would leave.”

He glances at Cas, now slumped against the sofa, his face an unreadable mask. Dean imagines all the memories he has access to now, might be sifting through in their shared silence, and it makes him cringe. 

_Why would someone like you ever choose me?_

It’s a thought stark in its clarity, and all the more painful because of it. He sighs, raising himself wearily from the couch, unable to even look in Cas’s direction. 

“All these years you thought I was straight, but really I’m just an asshole,” he says grimly. “I made sure to shut you down so you wouldn’t get any ideas about us, and then I conveniently treated you like my partner. I punished the _first_ guy I ever loved by giving myself freely to whoever would have me, and then I punished you exactly the same way.” He rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms, his throat getting tight. “You were right. You need to get away from me so that you can have a shot at something real.” He starts shuffling in the direction of his bedroom, rubbing the back of his neck, sure that if he looks at Cas he’ll crumble. “I should be the one to leave, though. I’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“You said you punished the _first_ guy you ever loved,” Cas says from right behind him, and Dean nearly jumps because he never heard him move. “What do you mean, _first_?”

“I love you, Cas,” he says, and it comes out so easily, so naturally, that he wonders how he managed to never say it until now. “I have for a long time, but I couldn’t see it for what it was. Not until I almost lost you. I guess that’s the only way I know how much I care about people. And you deserve better than some guy with nothing but a history of meaningless encounters with little emotion in them.” 

“Hey!” Cas hisses angrily, pulling at Dean’s elbow until he’s standing in front of him. “I’m sick of you being the one making all the decisions in this dynamic! You don’t get to decide what’s best for me, or what I deserve, or what my interpretation of your past is. I’m the only one who gets to make choices for me about what I want.” He takes a step back, crossing his arms. “The only thing that matters is whether or not you want it, too.”

“Cas, I know you must be so confused right now, but if I could just go…”

“Don’t you fucking move, Dean Winchester. In all the years we’ve been friends I’ve never made any demands of you. Is that correct?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Cas.”

“Then you owe me one,” he says, poking Dean in the chest for emphasis. “Kiss me.”

“But…”

“Shut up,” Cas whispers, reaching out to cup Dean’s cheek. He leans in, brushing their lips together as he did earlier, pulling back just enough to look Dean in the eye, asking him a silent question. 

Dean swallows, placing one hand over Cas’s, the other grasping at his hip. 

“Don’t move this time,” Dean says, and Cas smiles wide before Dean leans in to kiss it off him completely. 

***

Patience shakes the snow off her coat and scarf, stamping her feet to warm up as she hangs them both on a hook in the back. She rubs her arms as she moves through the kitchen, smiling to see Donna at the grill, her blonde hair in a ponytail as she hums to herself and scrambles eggs.

The door to the restaurant swings in, and Mildred comes through carrying dirty dishes, but she stops in her tracks as when she sees Patience. 

“Do not get any ideas,” she says to her, making a menacing gesture with her eyebrows since her hands are full. 

“Ideas about what? I just walked in the door!” 

“Come here,” Donna says, smiling at her over her shoulder. “I’ll show you.” 

Patience stands next to her at the grill, and Donna gestures through the window into the far corner of the diner. 

“Look.”

Patience peers out, and sees two people sitting in a booth. The man facing her has light brown hair and looks unfamiliar, and the figure sitting opposite him has a mop of unruly dark hair, but it’s all she can see above the bench. They’re leaning across the table towards one another, holding hands.

“Guys, I’ve learned my lesson, I promise. I’m not going to try and grant any errant wishes, so those two won’t get a thing from me.” 

“Well,” Mildred says, coming between them to also peer through the window. “You’ve managed to hit one of them with magic already, and then he got hit by a car, if I remember correctly.”

“That’s Castiel?” Patience says, standing straight. “Well, then I should definitely go see if he needs anything.” 

“You stay right where you are, missy,” Donna says, pointing the spatula at her threateningly.

“I’m kidding!” she says, putting up her hands and backing away. “Donna, you know I won’t do that, not after all that’s happened. Wait.” Patience hunches down to peer through the window again. “Who is he with?”

“It’s his roommate,” Mildred says with a wink. “Though I think the term ‘beau’ is more appropriate now.”

“You’re kidding,” Patience says, and a smile starts to creep across her face before it falls again. “I don’t understand how, though. I thought the roommate was straight?” 

“Sweetie, people thought the same thing about Cary Grant,” Mildred says, rolling her eyes before pushing through the doors to the main dining room. 

“Who is Cary Grant?” 

Donna shakes her head with a laugh. “I think she’s just trying to say that bisexuality isn’t a new-fangled concept.”

“Right,” Patience says, thinking. “I’m glad it all worked out in the end, I guess.” She twists her hands in her apron. “If I could ever grant a wish for myself, it would be to apologize to him for all I’ve done.” 

“ _Magic cannot be for the benefit of the caster_ ,” Donna says, “the first of Seelie’s laws.” The look she gives Patience is one of resigned sorrow, that of a person who knows their own greatest wish can never, ever be filled. “Maybe instead you could just do something nice for him of the non-magic persuasion and call it a day.”

Patience smiles, leaning in to give Donna a kiss on the cheek, and twenty minutes later she enters the dining room with a parcel wrapped in green cellophane and tied off with a bright red bow.

“Hi there,” she says, stopping at the booth, and both parties look up in confusion before Castiel smiles at her. 

“Hello, Patience,” he says, and she almost replies _I thought you had amnesia_ but bites her lip instead. “I don’t remember you ever working a day shift before.”

“Not normally, but I don’t have classes during break so I fill in whenever. I didn’t even know you came in here during regular daylight hours,” she said, glancing pointedly at the other man in the booth, but he just smiles and rubs his thumb across the skin of Castiel’s knuckles, his eyes never leaving him. “I heard you’d been in an accident. You doing okay?”

“Yes,” he says, glancing at the man across from him. “I’m fully recovered. Um, this is Dean, by the way. I’ve...told you about him before.” Dean finally looks up to meet her eyes, holding out a hand. 

“Ah, yes. _Dean.”_ She grasps his hand tightly, and the room shifts imperceptibly as a vision sweeps over her. She sees both the men moving furniture into a house together, scene after scene of mundane domestic life. Both of them in impeccable suits, smiling and laughing, surrounded by people. Flashes of years passing, a whole life lived before her eyes Their faces lined, their hair greying, but their wizened fingers still intertwined as they sit side by side. 

She feels him shaking her hand and she blinks her eyes rapidly, coming back to herself.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Patience,” Dean is saying. “I hope you’ll hear better of me in the future,” he says, glancing at Cas who looks away guiltily. 

“I’m sure I will,” she says, filled with relief as she pulls her hand away. “Well, I put these together for you, Castiel, just a little gift from all of us here. I seem to remember you liked the pumpkin ones. A belated ‘Get Well’ gift, if you will.” She puts the parcel on the table, the cellophane fogging from the steam of fresh muffins, tucked inside one of the bread baskets and wrapped up prettily. “Or an early Valentine’s Day one.” She gives Dean a look, but he only has eyes for the man in front of him. “I don’t think you’ll be shredding them to pieces anymore.” She winks at Cas and darts away before she says anything incriminating, ducking back into the kitchen.

***

_darkness and pain_

_“your wallet and your watch”_

_rough brick_

_“your wallet and your watch”_

_light_

_“your wallet and your watch”_

He comes awake with a gasp, hands clutching at fabric and breathing hard. It takes a few minutes for him to calm down enough to be aware of his surroundings, and it’s only then that he realizes that there’s a hand pressing into the small of his back as another strokes his hair, and that the cloth in his fists is that of a t-shirt.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m here,” Dean says in a low voice, and Cas relaxes against his torso, tucked in against his side with his head on his chest. “Just take a few breaths, you’re alright.”

Cas loosens his grip, sliding one hand down Dean’s ribs and under the hem of his shirt, flattening his palm against the smooth, warm skin above his hip and rubbing it lightly with his thumb. He hears a soft sigh in return as Dean presses a kiss into his hair and holds him tighter.

“Each time you wake me from a nightmare,” he whispers into Dean’s chest, “I wonder if I’m still dreaming. If I’ve just moved from one reality into another.”

“You’re awake, Cas,” Dean says lowly, tracing circles between his shoulder blades with a fingertip. “You’re here with me.”

“I am, aren’t I?” he says in wonder, still unable to believe it. It’s been a few months since their relationship changed, and they’ve been slowly navigating their way into each other’s space. You would think after waiting so long they’d jump in with both feet, but Cas getting his memory back wasn’t a magic cure. He’s grown so used to keeping his affection hidden that it’s hard for him to adjust to being open about it now, especially around other people. Dean still has a lot of guilt to work through, coupled with a deep-seated conviction that he doesn’t deserve any of this. It seems they overcame one set of obstacles only to be faced with entirely new ones, except that now neither has to face them alone. 

Cas moves his fingers across Dean’s hip, slowing tracing the skin just under his navel, right above the sleep pants he’s wearing. He hears the slight hitch of breath as he moves the pads of his fingertips back and forth, back and forth, just ghosting across the soft skin there. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Just thinking,” Cas hums, now just using one finger and a little more pressure. “I think I know what will help ground me in the real world.” They’ve been learning each other with a slow intimacy, as well. Cas isn’t a prude, but he can sense the underlying nervousness in Dean whenever they get to a certain point, so he’s been holding back. They haven’t even been completely naked together. Yet. 

“What’s that?” Dean asks, his voice strained. Cas moves to hover over him, pressing their bodies together but bracing himself on his hands as he peers down at him in the dark. Dean’s hands move automatically, caressing Cas’s hips before they slip under his t-shirt to flatten against his lower back. Cas regards him for a moment, then leans down to kiss him, softly at first, then full of intent. He pulls away after several minutes, dragging Dean’s lower lip just lightly between his teeth.

“I think a hot shower will set me to rights,” he says, voice husky with sleep and desire. “Care to join me?”

Dean laughs, full-throated and rich in the velvet darkness. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

“Is it working?”

“It worked the first time.”

“Did I lose part of my memory again? Because I distinctly remember that seduction technique _not_ working at the time.”

“Oh, so you admit that’s what it was?” Cas can see the gleam of Dean’s smile in the dark. “You practically said ‘no homo’ to me when you asked.”

“I didn’t think you would help me otherwise.”

Dean doesn’t respond at first, and Cas counts the measured breaths he takes, feeling his chest rise and fall sixteen times before he speaks again.

“When we first became friends, I felt like I needed to have distinct boundaries, so that nothing like Nick happened again.” He strokes Cas’s cheek with the back of his fingers, dragging his thumb across his lower lip. “I fooled myself into believing that if we were just friends I would never lose you, could never ruin things the way I did with him.”

“You’ve spent a lot of time denying yourself things,” Cas says, turning his face away and pressing his ear into Dean’s chest, listening to his heart pulse against his ribcage. “Have you ever been true to yourself?” 

A warm hand moves under his shirt, the palm caressing the skin along his spine, up and then down again. “Right now, Cas. Holding you like this, feeling you breathe against me, is the truest thing I’ve ever felt. I hope that someday I deserve it, and that I never do anything to lose it.”

Cas traces the skin above Dean’s waistband again, feeling the way his muscles tense in surprise and anticipation. “I think we need to help each other to stay grounded in what’s real.” He moves his hand up, across Dean’s stomach, tracing his sternum and then moving it to circle his left nipple. 

“Cas,” Dean says in a quietly strained voice. 

“And maybe the way to do that is to stop being so careful around each other,” Cas says idly, as if Dean hadn’t spoken, switching to trace circles around the other nipple as he picks up his head to fix Dean with a piercing glare. “Although you still need to be careful with my pajama pants when you take them off, you know these are my favorites.”

“I have no idea how you manage to still be so sexy covered in bees,” Dean says huskily, rolling Cas onto his back and pinning him into the mattress with a fierce kiss.


End file.
